I WAS going to concentrate my comments this month on the decision by London Underground to close ticket offices at a number of our tube stations. The stated reason is that they want to encourage use of Oyster cards. So it's nothing to do with cost cutting then. Surely the safety and security of passengers should be considered. I think that it is paramount that our tube stations are manned at all times that the trains are running. With the recent attempted terrorist outrages and the constant need for vigilance this decision must be reversed. Something Nick Hurd and I will be lobbying hard for over the coming weeks.

However, the terror threat is once again dominating our thoughts and will pose challenges about what we must do to try to give the security services every help in their vital work. Like many, I suspect, despite my best endeavours certain unspoken prejudices play around in my mind. Fear can also breed anger, but we do have to be extremely careful not to overact and give way to those prejudices.

Last Sunday, Kate and I attended a memorial for a very dear friend, a mother of two boys very close in age to our children. She tragically died from cancer a few months ago at the age of 45. It was inevitably a very sad and moving occasion but it celebrated the life of someone whom no one could fail to like. She was an Iranian Muslim but one of the most poignant tributes paid to her was from an Israeli Jewish teaching colleague.

As we all celebrated a life of a special, kind and loving human being, all thoughts of racial and religious enmity disappeared. Those who perpetrate the evil acts of terrorism commit those crimes against us all and we must never allow them to stop us from treating everyone as a fellow member of the human race, however difficult it can be at times.