BRITAIN:The prime minister, Tony Blair, has appealed for patience as police complete the difficult and often harrowing business of identifying the dead following Thursday's bombings in London.
That call was echoed by Metropolitan Commissioner Ian Blair who said the areas under investigation amounted to "the biggest crime scene in British history".
Only one person of possibly 70 people killed has been formally named and some relatives yesterday criticised the slow pace of identification.
With 56 people still in hospital, some of them seriously ill, Sir Ian confirmed that more than 70 liaison officers had been assigned to families affected by the tragedy. This did not mean this was the number of people who had died, he said. The final death toll "will not rise to three figures".
A two-minute silence will be observed in London and throughout Europe at noon on Thursday to honour the victims of the four bomb attacks which the prime minister said were probably carried out "by Islamist extremist terrorists".
London mayor Ken Livingstone confirmed that a mass vigil will be held in Trafalgar Square on Thursday night. There will be a roll call of the dead and readings of poems of remembrance.
Mr Blair also announced that Queen Elizabeth will lead the nation at a memorial service on a date to be set after consultations with victims' families.
As police continued to investigate a small number of suspected racist incidents, the House of Commons staged a powerful display of unity behind Mr Blair in a common determination that the bombers would not succeed in dividing British society.
Pledging to do all in his power to bolster moderate Muslim leadership in Britain, Mr Blair said: "People know full well that the overwhelming majority of Muslims stand four-square with every other community in Britain."
Expressing his "revulsion at this murderous carnage of the innocent", Mr Blair sent "deep and abiding sympathy and prayers to the victims and their families". He vowed: "We are united in our determination that our country will not be defeated by such terror, but will defeat it and emerge from this horror with our values, our way of life, our tolerance and respect for others undiminished."
Conservative leader Michael Howard said the bombers had "tried with the fires of hate to destroy the bonds of love". But crucially "the terrorists failed to unite one group in our national society to blame another". Mr Howard also paid a highly personal tribute to Mr Blair and the "calm, resolute and statesmanlike response" of his government to the situation.
These sentiments were endorsed by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and by DUP leader Rev Ian Paisley, who echoed Mr Howard. "We pay tribute to you, sir," Dr Paisley told the prime minister. "I think the whole country can salute you today, and thank you for your guidance." Following yesterday's meeting of the cabinet's emergency "Cobra" committee, Mr Blair told Mr Howard he knew this political unity also sent an important message and was "another reason why the terrorists will fail". Mr Howard only gently repeated his view that intelligence and other security matters in the run-up to the bombings should be reviewed "in due course".
Mr Kennedy welcomed Mr Blair's indication that he would seek the widest possible consensus for new anti-terrorist legislation which home secretary Charles Clarke is due to present in draft form in the autumn.
Mr Blair entered a caveat, saying that if it became clear the police and security services needed new additional powers urgently, he reserved the right to bring proposals before the House with an accelerated timetable.
At a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels tomorrow Mr Clarke will press for Europe-wide agreement on the retention of e-mail and other telecommunications data. He was backed by EU security commissioner Franco Frattini, who told the BBC: "We should guarantee the full traceability of the movements of terrorists through the stage of phone calls, including unsuccessful phone calls, but, of course, for the appropriate period of time."
A former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, agreed that "safeguards" should be built into such measures. However, they could "make the difference in some cases", and the essence of catching the bombers was to have officers "doing very laborious work of this kind".
Giving some indication of the scale of the investigation, Sir Ian said officers had so far collected 2,500 CCTV tapes, taken 2,000 calls via the anti-terrorism hotline, and were dealing with 115,000 calls to the casualty bureau alone. But he vowed: "These people will be caught."