What the papers say: Terror returns to London

‘Another week, another grotesque terror attack on peaceful civilians’, says the Daily Mail. While in the Finsbury Park attack the alleged perpetrator ‘may have different coloured skin’ from those who have carried out previous atrocities, ‘their motivation was the same – to sow hate and division in our tolerant society’. Already, the Mail warns, ‘extremist groups’ are trying to use the attack ‘for their own malign political purposes’. The paper also hits out at ‘the usual crowd of Left-wing celebrity attention-seekers’ who have tried to pin the blame for what happened on the media. To do so, says the Mail, ‘is not only absurd, it’s also deeply offensive’. Instead, the proper response ‘is not to apportion blame but to present a show of unity and defiance’. After all, the Mail concludes, ‘if we allow the terrorists to divide us – setting one racial group against another – they have won’.