Security issues dominate UK campaign after attack

May faces further questions about police cuts as general election nears

LONDON - Two days from a national election, the United Kingdom's ruling Conservatives and opposition Labour Party battled to defend their records on security after an extremist attack that killed seven people in London upended the campaign.

After police named all three attackers and revealed that one was previously known to security agencies, Prime Minister Theresa May faced further questions about her record overseeing cuts to police numbers when she was interior minister.

The latest opinion poll, by Survation for ITV, had the Conservatives' lead over Labour narrowing to just one point from six points in the same poll a week earlier.

However, the consensus among pollsters remains that May's party, who have been in government since 2010, will win a majority.

In Britain's third terrorist attack in months, three men rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge on Saturday evening before running into the bustling Borough Market area, where they stabbed people.

One of the attackers was 27-year-old Khuram Butt, a British citizen born in Pakistan. He was known to police and the domestic spy agency MI5 but, with resources scarce, had not been deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said.

Butt had appeared in a television documentary called The Jihadis Next Door, broadcast last year by Britain's Channel 4, one of a group of men who unfurled an Islamic State group flag in a park.

Criticism immediately flared about how Butt was able to carry out the attack.

"Why didn't they stop TV jihadi?" read The Sun front page, while The Daily Mirror asked: "So how the hell did he slip through?" The conservative Daily Telegraph added: "It is astonishing that people who pose such a danger to life and limb should be able to parade their foul ideology on TV with no consequences."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson admitted the security services had to provide an answer.

"People are going to look at the front pages today and they are going to say, 'How on earth could we have let this guy or possibly more through the net? What happened? How can he possibly be on a Channel 4 program and then committing atrocities like this?'," Johnson said on Sky News.

"That is a question that will need to be answered by MI5, by the police, as the investigation goes on," he said.

All the three attackers were shot dead at the scene.

A nationwide minute of silence was held at 11 am to honor all the victims.

Before the recent attacks, Brexit and domestic issues such as the state of the health service and the cost of care for the elderly had dominated the election campaign.

When May called the election in April, her Conservatives led in opinion polls by 20 points or more.

But an announcement - made before the attacks - that they planned to make some of the elderly pay more for their care saw that lead start to shrink, to between one and 12 points now.

Reuters - Afp