I was in Helsinki when the driver of my taxi asked me whether I had heard about the bombs in London. “No,” I replied anxiously, “what happened?” Once told, I promptly tried to reach members of my family. Two hours later, satisfied that they were alive, I felt relief and guilt over that relief, aware that others would not be so lucky. What I had long expected had finally happened.

I am a Londoner. This city has been my home for three-quarters of my life. I desire no other. It is both a collection of villages and a metropolis. It is the home of Shakespeare’s theatre, the cradle of representative democracy and among the world’s greatest commercial centres. I love it for its tolerance, diversity and vitality. It is cosmopolitanism incarnate. This is the city that defied the Nazis. For absolutists of all kinds, London is the symbol of everything they hate.