The British security industry has the capacity to be a world leader and it should be our shared objective to achieve this.

The suicide bombers who struck London on 7 July 2005 killed 52 innocent people and wounded hundreds more. All of them must live with their memories. And the rest of us will always remember where we were when we heard that London had been hit by the worst terrorist attack in its history.

We owe it to the victims of the suicide bombers who struck London on 7 July 2005 to find out how the attacks happened and to learn the lessons that will spare lives in the future.

Those who say that the West and Islam are eternally irreconcilable have more in common with the Islam extremists than they might like to think, for it's the very same argument of course advanced by Al-Qaida. And they do have it wrong. We need to work with mainstream Islam.

Women tend to break the network of friends they make, but it is a habit that men have learned. It is an approach to life that involves planning almost without thinking about it. And men sustain this. I came from a northern grammar school. I had a good education, but I didn't have a good network.

As the BBC approaches the final phase of decisions about its future, it will be important for those involved to be established in post and ready to take responsibility for implementation of the outcome.

One of the marked characteristics of the U.K. security industry as compared with defence is the lack of company scale. This can put our firms at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to big contracts.