RIP everyone killed in the Manchester bombing. How horrible. I'm sure everyones thought are with the friends/families and the injured.
To some extent, you have to accept that acts of terrorism will occur in large capital cities like London and Paris. There are many reasons why these places would be targeted and why it's hard to protect against attacks. The demographic of such cities makes it more likely that there will be groups of terrorists within some of the communities living there already. When it happens in a smaller city, it's even more frightening. The realisation that these kinds of attacks can occur anywhere, at any time is chilling. It also makes you wonder just how many would-be terrorists there any amongst us. It's worse than during the times when the IRA were active (when Manchester was also bombed). The relatively small size of the organisation and their limited resources meant that the IRA would bomb infrequently, but identify targets for maximum impact. Religiously/politically radicalised terrorists can strike anywhere, at any time - often acting alone or in small groups. They could as easily stab a single victim in a remote area as detonate a bomb in a city centre.
I agree. As someone who has lived his life in London, terrorist atrocities have been a sickeningly frequent occurrence. I grew up during the IRA terror campaign on the mainland and became very used to having no waste bins in public places and the armed police everywhere and the regular reports of death and damage to people and property. Sadly, it's got to the point where most Londoners are pretty much immune to the threat. A couple of years ago my wife's sister asked if we were okay with her taking our kids up to a major event in central London. When I asked her "why?" and she said "the terrorist risk", I was genuinely surprised. It was nice of her to ask but long ago I accepted that living in London comes with that risk as a given. I got on public transport straight after 7/7/2005, not because I'm brave or stupid or reckless but because it's normal in London to do just that and get on with life. Unfortunately, the new terror is more homespun and will increasingly happen in towns and cities of all sizes across the world. It doesn't spread terror, just grief and more hatred. My thoughts and tears are with the injured, the relatives and friends of the injured and murdered and those, like the emergency services and people working at the venue, whose lives will be severely affected by this awful act. Peace to all.
No you don't have to accept it. You have to balance peoples freedom against risk. Unfortunately, we have to be lucky every time, the terrorists have to be lucky only once. Certainly in the case of a gig, everyone entering could be searched/strip searched, which would have avoided the incident last night. But that takes away decent peoples freedom. Alternatively, you could search any person of 'middle eastern appearence". However, that would draw calls of racism from the left. It would also limit the freedom of the many decent muslims who have made the UK their home. Perhaps many more x ray scanners, as one finds at airports may help, although it is a bit of a pain, I never object at airports because I'd rather fly safely. Inteligence is a big thing. Clearly, as the American were very quick to call this latest incident as terrorism, they knew something was going to go down. I'd guess they didn't know when and where or they would have alerted us. We must become more aware of what is going on and who is doing what. Big Brother needs to watch us all more that it ever has. If you are not breaking the law you have nothing to fear. What we must not do is accept it.
I would argue a lot fewer than people think. These incidents are thankfully few and far between but the exposure they get gives them a sort of immediacy that they would not have had in the past. My parents grew up in London being regularly bombed by the Germans, sadly they got used to it and carried on. The fact that these things happen infrequently means that we don't get as used to them, but it also means there are a lot less people doing them than we might think. As Brian said, during the IRA campaign we became less shocked by it because of the frequency. What you will see now from certain sections is a rush to condemn whole communities for the actions of the mental few (no doubt quoting very select incidents in the past) - which is of course exactly what they want. The other thing that happens of course is that everyone says this won't affect our way of life, our freedoms or our democracy, while at the same time postponing election campaigning, and no doubt for the Government to plan the introduction of some other restriction on the freedoms of the many because of the actions of the very very few.
As I have said several times, you trade certain inconveniences/intrusions in your daily life for the greater good. In this case, to reduce to zero the number of attempted + completed atrocities like yesterday.
These days it feels like so many people are actively rooting for terror attacks to happen so they get another excuse to push their agenda to the forefront, be it Breitbart, InfoWars, Britain First or the collection of angry little cockroaches that swarm upon comments sections - which, frankly, is just as ****ed up as anything the terrorists do, not least because they'll willingly creating a culture that plays directly into terrorist's hands.
Sorry I'm not prepared to do that. When that happens the terrorists win. And in order to stop such atrocities the impact on civil liberties would be massive. In fact, it is almost impossible to stop so what happens when new restrictions are imposed and another attack happens? Calls for even more restrictions presumably! The only defence is good intelligence work by the security services and the general public understanding that 100% security is impossible, certainly for what they might want to accept by way of draconian restrictions on freedom. Searching people on entering a building / form of transport etc only gets you so far, this attack happened in a crowded area, which it is almost impossible to protect. The Government needs to be honest about what is possible, and not do something for the sake of being seen to do something. It is also ironic that the party that the public will probably identify with being the "best" to deal with this situation is the party that has presided over a massive reduction of police (and one where the home secretary seems to think they earn 40k).
Career constables in London can and do earn £40k - that's good money. The young'uns start at £20k... I'm not willing to sacrifice any more liberties and freedoms, nor do I want more surveillance of Joe Public, nor ID cards. No thank you. Proportional responses are fine. In the rainy UK, you are still just as likely to die from being hit by lightning
She claimed the national average is £40k, even though the national average is lower than that - and when challenged on this she claimed it was correct as it was what was written down, even though she was saying this to a room full of senior police officers who know what they get paid. Meanwhile, the anti-Corbyn brigade really are covering themselves in glory today... So the tweet was deleted out of respect...but they had a finite amount of respect so tweeted a screencap of it? Because respect?
A particularly odious individual and unfortunately not alone. However I think we all know that last night's horrific and diabolic actions will influence the outcome in 3 weeks - and which party will benefit!
Then what inconveniences/intrusions, financial or personal, are you prepared to tolerate to see this bunch of muslim muppets and their ilk be reduced to at best a once in a lifetime atrocity ??
Headlines we should be seeing, but won't... Woman who spent a month avoiding a debate calls someone "cowardly" Party responsible for Dementia Tax calls someone else's actions "barbaric" What strikes me is hearing comments about how arena security has a reputation for making damn sure that nobody brings a bottle of water into the arena, but incredibly lax at actually frisking people. Now if this is true, and considering some of the piss poor security measures I've seen in several other places in recent months it certainly sounds feasible, this is something that needs to be discussed - but it won't, of course, even though a discussion about how private security companies are more focused on helping those that hired them screw extra money out of attendees than keeping them safe isn't something to bawl "strong and stable" about, even though that is the exact thing the bomber exploited so he could carry out this attack.
For me Roger Moore will always be The Saint and Lord Brett Sinclair as Sean Connery will forever be James Bond. My youngest brother has Moore as THE BOND. I guess it's an age thing. An icon in all those roles. Thanks for the memories.
I found this quote when I was doing my rounds I used to work at the Royal Albert Hall in the early 90's. Every year there were several charity events that Roger Moore would turn up to present awards to sick kids at, or something else. He was an absolute gentleman at all times. I mean, once backstage most stars turn into utter dicks but this guy was amazing. And he always made a point at the end of whatever the function was of going round every staff member he'd had some form of interaction with and thanking them -right down to the cleaners etc.. So very very rare in what is basically an industry full of ego-maniacal lunatics. R.I.P. Roger. A true gentleman.
Instead of addressing the real issue which is supporting and nurturing countries like Saudi Arabia that specialises in spreading medieval values.
