Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza has an interview with Lorenzo Vidino, an Italian terrorism expert, about the recent near-attack on trans-atlantic aeroplanes. The interviewer is the ever incisive Mariusz Zawadzki. The headline is “Why Great Britain Again?” It is quite a puzzler, alright. Vidino is able to help: he says that Britain is perceived the world over as the USA’s most important ally and it has soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps Zawadzki missed that one but in fairness the obvious questions have to be asked too. But Zawadzki is still mystified. How come there are so many al Qaeda sympathisers in Britain, he asks. “There are more Muslims in France and one hardly hears of terrorists.” He really chooses his words carefully. (“We Francji jest wi?cej muzu?man�w, ale prawie nie s?ycha? o terrorystach.”)

I was disappointed when Vidino did not simply repeat his answer to the previous question. Instead he attributes the state of affairs not to the absence of French soldiers in the middle East but to greater restrictions in France on extremism.

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British Muslim leaders also state the obvious to a “dismayed” Downing Street.