This obviously comes from someone who has never dug deeper than a second-hand superficial paraphrasing, shorn of context, of a reasonable summary of the London (and British) mood.
London particularly has been no stranger to bombs and terrorism over the lifetime of most of us. I have absolutely no doubt that Londoners in general would be behind Mayor Khan. A reign of fire from the Luftwaffe, bombing from Irish republicans, Islamist terrorist nutters…even though he didn’t express it as flippantly as you suggest they are all the price we pay for a free society and life within a major city (and hence a major target). Doesn’t mean we don’t put our efforts into preventing them in the first place, we did before and we will again.
Though diluted from overuse, there is a reason why the meme “Keep calm and carry on” finds traction in troubled times.
No, if the exact same statement had issued from Trump’s mouth I’d be perfectly happy. I’d also be amazed as he seems incapable of stringing together a cogent and nuanced thought.
Sadly a very small percentage of a large number is still a large enough number to cause harm. When they are then also spread widely throughout all countries in the world we have situation that is incredibly difficult to police.
Just in the UK alone there are thousands of people under the eye of law enforcement as potential terrorists. No-one in their right mind can ever guarantee that all of them will be stopped before they act.
Of course, what is less reported is how many plots actually do get foiled. There were at least 5 in the period between the Westminster attacks and the Manchester bombing.
This is sadly true but it will ultimately be the moderate majority in these communities who starve the terrorists and radicals of cover and support, best then to consider policies that get them onside and keep them there. Cultural change takes time.
Tough, it is part of western life whether you think it should be so or not. There will always be a subset of radical ideologues who hate what we do, how we live and want to destroy us.
As someone else has suggested, This is a free society that pretty much guarantees an opportunity for terrorist attacks. Now there is a potential alternative to that but it is a solution and a mindset that frightens me far, far more than the risk of an occasional bomb or ramming attack
How do you know it was missed? By your logic here any crime that occurs is a failure on part of the police.
It seems to me that eight minutes from first call to dead terrorists is a speedy response.
Perhap the bigger problem is US companies like YouTube and Facebook providing impressionable kids with a ‘safe space’ to explore extremism and ultimately facilitating terrorism while making enormous profits.
Yeah, lets drive the chat about terrorism away from easily monitored channels that will comply with Government and police orders to underground, much harder to track venues.
Just out of curiosity, what lessons would those be, in your opinion. It seems to me that we are still in a police mindset, and that evidence has to be gathered and a warrant issued by judges, before the cops can pull anyone in. The police are a reactionary force and are always going to be behind the eight ball and the op4 is going to be agile enough to pick and choose which targets they want, based on previous police reactions.
For a start we have the BBC and Hollywood on side, if all the willing audience has is boot leg copies of recordings brought in by sneaker net, its easy enough to pervert the message by seeding recordings using paid actors dressed in mufti, after all, its not like they can’t do the same thing on youtube and I imagine that these kids are taking it on faith that the people they are watching are the genuine article.
I suppose if we are talking paranoid ‘false flag’ operations, it’'s wise to get things wrapped up in a (suspiciously swift?!) eight minutes.
There must be some people on the Internet who believe that the incumbent Tories manufactured this, and Manchester, for pre-election gain. I pity the fools.
I find the prospect of being attacked on a Saturday night - while likely quite inebriated by 10pm - especially unsettling.
Of course it was missed. If police were aware of it, ie if they hadn’t missed it, it would have been stopped before the terrorists could act. Eight minutes is certainly fast but it’s also eight minutes too slow.
So there was a clear evidence that this was going to happen and they missed it? How on earth can you know that? Is each armed robbery or rape also a “miss” by the police? if not, why not?
And why are you expecting instantaneous action from the police? I hope you realise that “Minority Report” was fiction.
Oh for fuck’s sake Novelty Bobble, stop being purposely obtuse. An armed robbery is a different type of crime than terrorism. Terrorism requires continuous monitoring of chatter and movements of suspected terrorists. And when there is a gang going around undertaking armed robberies in an area, then absolutely yes the police need to anticipate and obstruct them from their next targets, and the more robberies happen the less anyone will say the Police as an institution has done well, they will rightly be called to task.
There is a major threat of terror in the UK. If the police fail to identify and stop potential perps, before they carry out attacks, then the police obviously have failed in their primary task.
I don’t know anything about false flag ops by British security folks, that was more in line with Theresa May’s intention to severely limit the internet. How young jihadis get their dose of radicalization without youtube available, would probably similar to how russian kids got the new rock and roll songs coming out of the west, just more updated.
Eight minutes can be a lifetime, but I don’t doubt that the met and partners had a rapid reaction force standing by, or several for such occasions. As to your saturday night festivities, that’s probably the point, if you sit at home to be safe, they score a victory.
…its barely a day after the event, we don’t even know who was responsible and you are already pointing the finger of blame at the police?
Was 9/11 the fault of the New York Police Department? The NYPD should be rightly called to task because planes hit the towers? The NYPD failed in their primary task?
It’s probably an intelligence failure - 1st the bombing and now this in a short span. In India, we are told that for every terrorist attack, there are several attacks which are thwarted due to intelligence. So we can’t even blame the intelligence if that’s the case in Britain as well.