Jose Maria Aznar

There is no possible negotiation with these killers. Our aim is to win over terrorism. Only by being firm we can stop terrorism. We must be firm fighting the terrorists and opposing the final aims they want to achieve.

And I think that still is true of this business - which is basically research and development - that you probably spend more time in planning and training and designing for things to go wrong, and how you cope with them, than you do for things to go right.

Finding a 'sacrificial lamb' on whom to tag blame for complicated problems is an important instrument in the toolkit of politicians, because it deflects blame for the nation's economic woes away from their own regulatory lapses, economic mismanagement and coddling to labor unions.