Brown's Wars Part One: Under attack in the UK

As Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith wound up an emergency meeting in Downing Street yesterday morning, questions hung in the air: "Is it over? Are there any more bombs?" The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, still barely used to hearing themselves addressed by their new titles, were quietly confident. By the end of the meeting they were happy that the security services and the police were on top of the situation. No lives had been lost.

Within hours, such confidence was shattered by the news that a blazing Jeep Cherokee packed with canisters of petrol had been driven in an apparent terrorist ram raid into the departure lounge at Glasgow airport. Ms Smith, working in her office, picked up the phone to the Prime Minister. It was the third such alert Mr Brown had received in as many days.

They started on Friday morning, At 6am Mr Brown was sitting at his computer in his private flat in Downing Street, drinking his first cup of coffee of the day. In rushed the No 10 overnight clerk, without knocking. "A bomb has been found," he said. "The Home Secretary has already been informed."

The Prime Minister, not even two full days into the job, was facing his first major test. As the No 10 duty clerk closed the door of his flat, Mr Brown picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Ms Smith. It was the first of many calls he made before breakfast.

Ms Smith was undergoing her own baptism of fire. Woken before sunrise, she had already spoken to the police and security services and was abreast of the ongoing investigation.

Privately, Mr Brown, a natural early riser, was annoyed to hear that the Home Secretary had been woken up in the middle of the night, while he had been left sleeping. No 10 staff, not yet aware of his personal routine, were told he was up by 6am, but were nervous about shaking him out of bed.

As much of London roused itself, Mr Brown was hammering the phones. He asked to be put straight through to Scotland Yard where he spoke directly to anti-terror officers leading the investigation, and MI5 where he was directly apprised of the latest information sifted out of surveillance of 2,000 possible suspects and 30 suspected plots being monitored in the UK.

Before long, he was fully briefed on the discovery of the metallic green Mercedes outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in central London, left primed to explode. At 7.30am he convened a meeting of Downing Street staff, among them Tom Scholar, his new chief of staff, and No 10 civil servants.

The Prime Minister decided that an emergency committee should meet immediately in Cobra's room in the basement of the Cabinet Office. Significantly, it would be a meeting not of politicians but of the key figures in the investigation - from the Metropolitan Police to the secret listening station GCHQ. The Prime Minister, closely involved in the talks after the 7/7 bombings, wanted the services to convene and discuss the best strategy forward. As far as he was concerned, there was little to be gained from politicians - all of them new to the job - sitting around chatting.

In the Cobra bunker, a windowless room specially protected to stop eavesdroppers, Jacqui Smith was the only minister present. Around the table, in front of computers linked to secret service, police and government officials in small operational cells outside the room, sat the top team. Andy Hayman, assistant commissioner of the Met, responsible for counterterrorism operations, was present, as was Peter Clarke, the Met's public face of anti-terrorism. MI5 and GCHQ were represented, along with top civil servants with the highest security clearance from the Cabinet Office and Home Office. Sir David Normington, the most senior civil servant in the Home Office, and Sir Richard Mottram, the Cabinet Office's most senior mandarin, were among those present.

Top of the agenda was an operational update from the police. In Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, the Home Secretary was told how the lives of hundreds had been saved after the police defused a nail bomb, which was to have been set off by a mobile phone, and how a big manhunt was already under way. "The spooks were there. They said there was no specific intelligence about the bombs, otherwise they would have been stopped," said one source at the meeting.

At 10am, Ms Smith briefed only the second meeting of Mr Brown's Cabinet on what she had been told. The Prime Minister was adamant the terrorists would not divert ministers from the day-to-day business of government. So, in a slightly surreal atmosphere, a scheduled discussion on constitutional reform came after the talk of nail bombs and carnage.

Among the proposals to be put out to consultation next week are electoral reform, whether a form of proportional representation should be introduced in the voting system, and whether the vote should be extended to 16-year-olds.

Later that day, the Prime Minister carried out a visit to Kingston Hospital in south-west London with the new Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, between calls to senior police officers and the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans. Then Mr Brown managed to complete his reshuffle.

Among the new announcements, in a further indication that he would be tough on terror, was the surprise appointment of a senior military figure, Admiral Sir Alan West, bumped into the Lords as the new minister of security. Hazel Blears, infamous as a tough-on-crime-and-terrorism Blairite, was put in charge of communities - with responsibility for combating extremism among Muslims. In a sign that Mr Brown wants to liaise more closely with the Muslim community, the first Muslim ministers, Shahid Malik and Sadiq Khan, were appointed to the Government.

Adam Ingram, after six years as armed forces minister, was put in charge of a year-long review of the military's role in tackling the global terrorist threat.

Departing from political convention once more, Mr Brown brought Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington - an independent peer and former head of the Metropolitan Police - to advise on international security issues.

But those Labour MPs disaffected by Tony Blair's authoritarian posturing, who had hoped Gordon Brown would adopt a softer stance on terror than his predecessor, are likely to be disappointed. Even before he moved into No 10, Mr Brown was crafting tough new powers against terror suspects designed to increase the flexibility of the police to question and detain them.

The Prime Minister has already asked his policy officials to devise a way of extending from 28 days the time that terrorist suspects can be detained without charge. He favours a limit of 90 days - a controversial move that in 2005 led to the Government's first defeat in the Commons. To try to win over sceptical Labour MPs, concerned that locking up terror suspects without charge for almost three months severely breaches their civil liberties, Mr Brown is planning to bring in a number of safeguards.

He will offer Parliament and the judiciary more powers to oversee detentions and allow the courts to review the incarcerations weekly, while introducing an independent review process and annual reports to Parliament to boost accountability. In a clear indication that the new Prime Minister is prepared to curtail personal liberties in order to catch the most dangerous terror suspects, Mr Brown is planning - in the case of terrorism - to lift the ban on questioning suspects after charges have been brought.

He is also to look again at allowing phone-tap evidence to be used in court if it can help convict terrorists. This would please civil liberties campaigners, who have argued that terror suspects should be put on trial rather than be held under virtual house arrest. A review by a group of Privy Councillors would look at how the need to protect intelligence sources could be squared with bringing more terror cases to court.

Even before the events of this weekend, the Prime Minister had drawn up plans to increase the anti-terrorism budget for the police and MI5. It was a prescient move that during his first week of office had suddenly become more urgent.

Yesterday, Mr Brown himself chaired the first meeting of Cobra. Around the table, dressed in suits - in contrast to the more casual Saturday attire of the Blair era - were the key members of the Cabinet, as well as police and security personnel. The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the Justice Secretary Jack Straw, the Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears sat in the secure briefing room to be told of the operational developments. Ms Smith had already met the director-general of MI5, who came to the Home Office to brief her privately on top-secret surveillance material. But at the meeting the Met updated ministers about the discovery of a second car bomb clearly linked to the first.

The Prime Minister travelled to Scotland Yard yesterday morning, where he met police investigators who had been working through the night assembling intelligence. In a private meeting, Mr Brown expressed his admiration for their work, and pledged his personal support.

As well as offering kind words, the Prime Minister left no doubt in the minds of those present that no effort should be spared to find the culprits and protect innocent lives. He was told that, while conducting a manhunt, the police were concerned that not all the plots had been foiled. The suspicion proved to be accurate. Only hours later a blazing Jeep Cherokee containing two Asian-looking men crashed into Glasgow airport's terminal building.

In Downing Street, Mr Brown hit the phones. This time, it was not just to the Home Secretary but to those dealing with Strathclyde Police. The television was on in the background, beaming the shocking pictures to Whitehall. An hour and a half after the driver, with his clothes on fire, was restrained by police, officials acknowledged that they were "piecing the picture together" and anxiously gleaning more information about the nature of the threat in Glasgow.

That evening, as the gravity of the situation became clear, Mr Brown convened the second Cobra meeting of the day. After briefings from MI5 that more terrorist attacks could be imminent, the decision was taken to approve a move to the highest security alert - "critical". Soon afterwards, standing in a plush Whitehall office, the Prime Minister made a television statement to the nation. Looking every inch the statesman, he urged the British people to aid the authorities and stand together "united, resolute and strong".

Mr Brown spent years planning for the transition to No 10, and the challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan. But nothing could have prepared him to cope with a British terror alert, in his first days of office, that would test his mettle to the limit.

The Cobra Team: Key figures in the War on Terror

Cobra - short for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A - is the secret committee set up to deal with national emergencies. It meets in a bunker below the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

Doesn't always attend Cobra, but has the power to call the meetings. Chairs meetings when he does attend.

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary

Chaired first meeting of Cobra on Friday which was attended by the police and security service personnel.

Sir David Normington, most senior civil servant in Home Office

Provides the link between ministers and the police.

Sir Richard Mottram, Cabinet Office's most senior civil servant

Pivotal in feeding intelligence into government.

Peter Clarke, Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Unit

He briefed ministers on the latest intelligence involving the car bombs.

Andy Hayman, Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police

Key figure who has been in constant touch with ministers and investigators.

Terror in Britain

Since shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to blow up a transatlantic flight almost six years ago, there have been a number of terror plots against UK targets, London taking the brunt of the attacks.

29 June 2007

London: Police defuse a bomb consisting of 200 litres of fuel, gas cylinders and nails found in an abandoned car in Haymarket in the West End.

9 May 2007

Leeds: Four people arrested in Leeds over the 7 July attacks. Three men subsequently charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion.

1 February 2007

Birmingham: Nine arrested in Birmingham area on suspicion of involvement in a plot to kidnap and behead a young soldier who had served in Afghanistan.

21 July 2005

London: Attempted attacks against London's transport network at three underground stations and on board a bus. Rucksack bombs fail to explode.

7 July 2005

London: Four suicide bombers strike in Edgware Road, Tavistock Square, Russell Square and Aldgate, killing 52 people and injuring more than 770.

30 March 2004

London: Anti-terrorist police disrupt a plot by Islamic militants to blow up targets including the Ministry of Sound nightclub and the Bluewater shopping centre.

11 February 2003

Heathrow: Tanks and hundreds of soldiers join police at Heathrow to boost security amid fears of terror attacks.

22 December 2001

American Airlines Flight 63: Richard Reid (aka the shoe bomber) is arrested for attempting to destroy American Airlines Flight 63, a Boeing 767 flying from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to Miami International airport, USA by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes. Given a life sentence.