I couldn't agree more with Tim Hames in The Times. Like him. I am - as any reader of this blog will know - a hardliner on the war on terror. I believe George Bush and Tony Blair will be regarded by history as two of the most prescient leaders the US and Britain have ever had. And I have no problem at all with summary execution of would-be suicide bombers.

But something about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes doesn't add up. As Tim Hames puts it:

It is now clear that he started his trip from Tulse Hill, where he had stayed at someone else’s home, was watched, was noted wearing bulky clothing, yet was allowed (despite the slaughter at Tavistock Square on July 7 and the attempted blast on a double-decker at Hackney last Thursday) to board a bus for a 15-minute journey and was challenged only when he sought to buy an Underground ticket. Why was someone whom the police continue to insist was a “potential suicide-bomber” no menace on the No 2 bus, but an urgent threat who had to be taken out when moving in the direction of the Northern Line?

...It was hinted that he might have been an illegal immigrant, as if that justifies what occurred. It has been argued that it was “irresponsible” of him to wear a quilted jacket in July, as if that were a crime. There are, furthermore, “no excuses”, it is intoned, for the fact that he ran when armed plainclothed police officers shouted at him.

I know that we are all supposed to say how wonderful the police have been since 7/7, how much we respect the job they are doing and how it is said that any mild criticism is somehow giving succour to the terrorists. But everything about this incident smells of - at best - incompetence of the most grotesque and tragic kind. For me, the point which needs answering as a matter of urgency is why the police thought it perfectly OK to let a suicide bomber wander around the streets and get on a bus, and that he was only a problem when he got on the underground - with, as they claim to have believed, live explosives.

Everything about Sir Ian Blair's record so far as Commissioner is worrying, from the ridiculous PC behaviour of his first few days, to the shooting on the streets of a wholly innocent man in bizarre circumstances.

And this is not being wise after the event, as Tony Blair suggested today. Even if the man had indeed turned out to be a suicide murderer on his way to blow up his bomb, the same question would need to be asked: why did they wait for him to get on the Tube before taking action?

The platitudes of grief and sorrow we have heard so far are not enough.

Equally, I am at a loss to understand why the calls for an inquiry into the intelligence failures which allowed 7/7 to happen have been dismissed ab initio. Holding an inquiry does not mean attaching blame to the intelligence services. It may well be that to have expected them to discover the plot was impossible. But the relevant authorities need to know why they didn't - couldn't, perhaps - know about it. Only then can they learn from it.