MANCHESTER, like Glasgow, is a city that prides itself on the warmth of its people. It’s an affable city, outgoing, full of humour and banter, the sort of place – just like Glasgow – where people will routinely strike up a conversations at the bus stop and in shops.

Late on Monday night this friendliest of cities suffered an unspeakable terrorist attack, targeted upon children and teenagers enjoying the night of their young lives at a pop concert. We now know that 22 people were killed and 59 injured when a bomb, thought to be detonated by a suicide bomber, ripped through the foyer of the Manchester Arena, one of the UK’s biggest music venues, which was playing host to US singer Ariana Grande.

The people of Manchester are still trying to come to terms with the carnage and death, still shocked at the scale of the barbarity visited upon them. Their hurt is raw and palpable, and will be shared by people throughout the UK, Europe and beyond.

As the pictures, names and ages of the victims started to come through, the terrible reality of each individual tragedy inevitably began to be revealed, among them Saffie Roussos, eight, “simply a beautiful little girl”, who was at the concert with her mother and sister, and Georgina Callander, an 18-year-old student with a career in health and social care ahead of her.

But in the immediate aftermath of this attack there have also been moments of light and hope. We quickly got a sense of the solidarity and strength that will – eventually - help the city to move forward; the local residents who offered beds and comfort to traumatised young people separated from their parents; the taxi drivers who took people home free of charge; the cafes that opened their doors to offer hot drinks and shelter.

In the eye-witness accounts of the survivors, meanwhile, we heard heroic stories of how bystanders and the emergency services ran into danger in order to help those in need.

These decent people of all creeds, colours, religions and ethnicities have done their city proud; and in reacting so instinctively, pulling together as a community, they defied all those who seek to use such terrible atrocities only to create division.

Manchester’s new major, Andy Burnham, less than a month into the job, was sensible to draw on this spirit and strength, and it was notable that he chose to focus his speech yesterday not on the hateful actions of the terrorist, but how Mancunians should look to support each other in the difficult days ahead.

Prime Minister Theresa May, meanwhile, while echoing this defiant tone, is inevitably focusing on what this attack, the worst in the UK since the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, means for national security. So-called Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, though more information about the “who” and the “how” will no doubt become clearer in the days and weeks to come.

Manchester unfortunately now finds itself among an ever growing list of European cities that have suffered recent terrorist atrocities, including Paris, Brussels, Nice and Berlin. And this latest attack highlights that the perpetrators do not only target capital cities.

And here we must contemplate the “why”. What these murderous individuals and groups seek, of course, is impact; the maximum number of deaths, maximum publicity and outrage in the media. The consequence of this, they hope, will be fear and division spread throughout the populace, setting religion against religion, neighbour against neighbour.

Big concerts and public gatherings, venues and places where there are likely to be crowds of people in a confined space, where the maximum amount of indiscriminate death and injury can be inflicted, are now clearly the target of choice for such individuals and groups.

With this in mind, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee to examine the security implications for Scotland, not least with a host of such big events due to take place in the coming weeks, including Saturday’s Scottish Cup final.

As expected, there was talk of increased police presence and the need for public vigilance. But, in the end, these things will only take any free, democratic society so far. The harsh truth is no matter how hard the security services and police try to prevent such attacks, no matter how active the public is in supporting them in their efforts, the tenacity and persistence of those who seek to kill means they will sometimes succeed.

Entirely correctly, campaigning in the General Election has ceased as a mark of respect for the dead and injured. It remains to be seen whether the tone the debate will change when it does eventually get back under way, whether national security and policing will feature more prominently as an issue and, if it does, how this might impact upon the fortunes of the parties.

For now, however, politics must take a back seat as the Manchester seeks to process its shock and grief. Our thoughts are with its citizens.