Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the July 7 attacks on London’s transport network, which killed 52 commuters and brought the alarming phenomenon of home-grown suicide bombers to these shores. It also marked a week since the alarming but fortunately amateurish attempt by two terrorists to blow up Glasgow airport, with plotters having failed a few days earlier to bring carnage to London’s West End. Terrorism comes in many forms. What have we learnt and what else should we be doing?

The bungled nature of the latest failed attacks suggested that while the Al-Qaeda franchise stretches far and wide, its fringes are not characterised by the slick professionalism associated with some of its other operations. There is comfort in the efficient way the police and security services quickly swooped on those suspected of this “doctors of death plot”. We know from recent court cases and arrests that many attempted terrorist outrages have been averted by good intelligence work.

The latest attacks are a reminder that danger can come from unexpected quarters. The July 7 bombers were not, we now know, the “clean skins” originally portrayed; some were known to the security services. Similar evidence may emerge about the doctors but it appears to have come in under MI5’s radar screen. The timing of the attacks, to mark the end of the Blair era, was not a surprise. Yet, amateurish though they were, they could have succeeded.

Now the air is filled with the sound of stable doors being slammed shut. NHS recruitment procedures will be tightened up. Why was it easier for those under suspicion to get jobs in British hospitals than in Australia or the United States? Was it the desperation of the NHS to recruit, despite what is now a surfeit of newly trained doctors from Britain’s medical schools? It is a symptom of a more general problem. Britain’s borders are porous and have become significantly more so over the past decade. This government has been glad to welcome foreign workers but failed in its duty of maintaining proper border controls. The Conservatives have proposed a 10,000-strong border police force to keep out drug dealers, people smugglers, illegal immigrants and terrorists.

Gordon Brown wants to toughen the terror laws. He will steer through a bill this autumn to increase from 28 to 90 days the period in which police can hold suspects without charge, allow phone-tap evidence in terrorist cases, permit police to continue questioning suspects after they have been charged and give them extra powers to stop and question. He and Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, want to appear tough and resolute, although on some issues, notably the 90 days, all-party consensus will be hard to achieve and the government has yet to make a convincing case for it.

The antiterror bill is less important than what happens on the ground. After the July 7 attacks, Tony Blair announced a 12-point programme to combat radicalism. Little has come of it. No mosques have been shut for “fomenting extremism”; the radical group Hizbut-Tahrir is still allowed to operate (last week Mr Brown struggled to explain why); a Muslim taskforce got nowhere; control orders have been a farce; the aim of weeding out radical imams has failed – few preach in English and many preach the language of hate.

Mr Brown has talked of the need to win “hearts and minds”. Our values of liberty, fair play and respect for human life should be pushed relentlessly to combat the twisted messages perpetrated by those who seek to destroy us. America’s Muslim community, by and large, has signed up to US values much more than its UK equivalent has to values here. Winning hearts and minds has to be more than a slogan. Mr Blair pledged it and failed. Mr Brown must do better. Whatever the security measures, it is the only way.