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It's hard to overstate just how much politics has changed these last 20 years, the duration, more or less, of my politically aware life. The ideas, the parameters of

politics, its players, all of it, mutated, altered, if not transformed. There is something, though,

which hasn't changed, which through all of the twists and the turns has remained, a steady,

deadly drumbeat, a shadow against the political stage.

Terrorism, or the threat of terrorism.

From the 7-7 attacks 20 years ago next month, through the Glasgow airport attack, the murder

of Lee Rigby, the assassinations of Joe Cox and David Amos, and then the year of terror.

2017, the Westminster Bridge attack, the Manchester Arena attack, the London Bridge attack,

all in the space of a few months and then weeks. It has become part of the punctuation of our

lives and new cycles, a grim sense of inevitability, pushed always,

just out of mind and just out of view, something we don't want to reflect on, for the sense,

the chill that there, but for the grace of God, go we. That has had an effect on politics,

but we rarely hear from those in detail tasked with making sure that that catalogue of horror is not extended, asked to protect us day

after day. Neil Bersou is one of them. He was formerly one of the most senior police officers in

the country as the counter-terrorism lead for the Met.

He's just launched The Crime Agents, a new podcast with Home Affairs Journalists and LBC crime correspondent Andy Hughes.

We thought we'd ask them in to the newsagent studio to talk about their new project, of course, but ask a more fundamental set of questions.

What does it take to catch a terrorist?

And why does some slip through the net?

And how, in the next 20 years, will a face of terrorism change and the impact on our politics with it?

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