Shooting outside Portcullis House/Houses of Parliament

Reports of at least one person shot and a possible incident on Westminster Bridge.

yeah following this. bit too close for comfort altogether - my office is about five mins away.

Car hit pedestrians on the bridge, I've heard

Sky reporting 12 wounded on W'minster Bridge.

Quentin Letts says he saw police shoot a man who attacked officers with a knife.

Radek Sikorski says five people were hit with a car on the bridge.

idk how reliable any of that is. I can hear sirens from my office but not all that many.

The car mowing people down on Westminster Bridge seems to be true, could have been someone just freaking out and fleeing, who even knows.

Shiv Malik on Twitter sharing the info that order of incident is car on bridge hits pedestrians > driver runs to Parliament Square > altercation with police > shot.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gunfire-reported-outside-uk-parliament-in-london/

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39355940

Reports that the policeman and several pedestrians are dead

Holyrood refusing to suspend business; bad move imo

jesus xp

Not hearing those reports tbh.'Middle-aged Asian guy' was the assailant, according to witnesses.

I heard someone saying on R4 they stopped giving medical attention to at least one person on the bridge, who was definitely a fatality.

Not entirely clear if it's a lone attacker or if he has accomplices. Reports are understandably confused.

distant ambient sound in hackney is now all sirens at various distances going in various directions

(hackney being a fair way away, for non-londoners)

Seems calm enough on the Strand though traffic is going nowhere. Lots of helicopters though.

Sirens in Holborn but quieter now.

yes it's quietened down again

london eye isn't something i'd enjoy much at the best of times -- really glad i'm not one of those stuck on it now (it's been turned off for the duration, those halfway round remaining where they are until whenever)

One woman dead. Being reported.

can't escape the feeling some mps are looking for their 2 mins of fame with their desperate for gravitas tweets.

xpost i'm beside st james's park tube and i heard nothing but sirens when i was in the bathroom earlier. can't hear anything from my incredibly noisy office tho.

phone video on Twitter showing crashed vacated 4x4 and gunshots
https://twitter.com/claudiascore/status/844561131876204544

All passengers being let off the Eye now at least.

just got a txt from my sister -- who works at tate britain -- to say she is safe but was travelling (by scooter ftb she is a mod)* thru westminster square abt 20 mins after it started :(

*fake news: she is not a mod, she does travel by scooter tho

Traffic towards Chelsea Embankment at a total standstill

"..when I looked over the side of the bridge there appeared to be a body in the water.." says one witness. Good grief, it sounds like some poor bugger might have jumped to avoid the car.

They pulled someone out of the Thames alive, it's thought they were on the bridge when the car went through.

French students among the injured on the bridge

anniversary of last year's Brussels airport attack :/

the idea of vehicle as weapon of attack is really terrifying to me

Quentin Letts continuing his superb hardman shtick on PM now

Ugh.

rly hope someone punches Tommy Robinson in the head this evening

Four dead, now.

Including the attacker.

Using vehicles as a weapon of attack has been commonplace for decades. The target has generally been just one person and the attack motivated by anger. Much less spectacular than using an airliner as a weapon, but several orders of magnitude easier to arrange. It widens the scope of potential terror attacks enormously, so the only limiting factor becomes the supply of willing, radicalized perpetrators. No further obstacles to overcome, such as learning to build bombs, obtaining a gun and learning to shoot properly, or learning to fly an airbus. It's a turnkey operation now.

With that has tended to come fewer actual victims per attack - possibly indicating they'd rather have 10 attacks killing ten (average) than try to plot a single attack to kill a hundred (but excuse this morbid rumination).

Heard from a friend who's in one of the locked down buildings - no idea how long they'll be kept in.

I'd rather engage in this sort of rumination than give in to purely emotional reaction. Understanding the extent of a threat and calculating its reach and likelihood are necessary steps to a reasonable response. And by definition, the object of a terror attack is to provoke an unreasoning terror, so cool, detached thinking is the most potent enemy of terror.

dead suspect:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/westminster-terror-suspect-revealed-who-abu-izzadeen-1613176

didn't realize it was first anniv of Brussels attacks

I'd be amazed if it was him, it'd be the first time one of those celebrity jihadists had done anything more hazardous than renewing their Housing Benefit claims.

i was about to say.

It doesn't look that much like the photos of the attacker.

UK friend said he heard Channel 4 ID him... awful lot of outlets are wrong if it's not him

twitter reporting his solicitor says can't be him as he's in jail (all caveats re what twitter says obviously)

(hackney lad if it was him)

awful lot of outlets are wrong if it's not…

sadly not an unusual circumstance -- probably better to wait for police confirmation

looked like him from the one pictures I just saw of someone on a stretcher, but difficult to ascertain, certainly

So not a middle aged Asian man after all?

It's impossible to tell his race from the pictures and I doubt eye witnesses would be that much better.

asian covers a lot of territory

Not Jamaica normally tho

Not Jamaica normally tho

bbc news home affairs corresp dominic casciani tweeting that multiple sources confirm it's not izzadeen aka brooks: he's still in prison:
https://twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/844634204461813760

^^^this is still not a police confirmation obviously

I inappropriately have Nadia Oh singing "so crazy his skin tone / may be Jamaican / maybe Asian / fucking amazing" in my head now.

The guy in the pictures could be from any number of places and looks a lot smaller than Brooks.

24 hour news is a pox.

i will wait until this evening PST to bother reading about today's incident, when the information has any chance of being reliable and not a lot of speculative garbage spewed out by morally dubious clowns

the Independent ran a headline saying SUSPECT 'NAMED'

never saw that specific hedge before

channel 4 walking back their claim: https://twitter.com/gordonmacmillan/status/844635695264227329

suspect the other reports were just piggybacking off c4's fuck-up here

bet they've had a good little click harvest there, and Trevor has just had his Zarqawi moment and gained at least another 3 followers.

I'm curious as to why everyones assuming its a terrorist thing? We had a guy mow down and kill over a dozen people in our busiest CBD pedestrian mall a couple months back, and it was nothing more than a fucking nutter on ice. HAve people forgotten we can still also just have people who do this shit because theyre regular ol criminals?

that's hugely unlikely

and meth is not a common drug of abuse in the uk (accounts for less than 1 percent of people in drug treatment)

Huh, ok. Horrible news either way of course.

Schiff ain't pleased:

https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/844647142530732033

Sorry, wrong thread. Busy day!

Not sure I can argue with you seriously with that display name, jim, but why do you consider it unlikely?

because an attack at Westminster bearing many of the hallmarks of terrorist attacks carried out across Europe over the last couple of years is far more likely to be a terrorist attack than random violence committed by somebody with mental health or drug problems - something which seems to happen very very rarely in the UK

https://i.imgur.com/C2ElvLB.gif

This evening I'm grateful for all he does. Including that.

yes been watching this develop all day and that was a little lighthearted moment in all of it.

LOL Channel 4. I hope Jon Snow gets sued personally.

yes i was briefly (and uncharitably) hoping the independent gets sued to extinction for repeating the claim, in a spirit of fuck lebedev you understand

It was an attack on a policeman outside a centre of government and therefore presumably politically motivated. Regardless of the background of the attacker I'm okay with calling this terrorism.

I've heard Snow has a few extremist ties himself (sorry).

lol daily mail headline:
https://twitter.com/dalecornish/status/844658042117505024

i guess the sequence 'mows down pedestrians on bridge with vehicle, crashes into rail, flees vehicle, attacks policeman' kind of muddies, for me, who this person was targeting

xxpost

I think it is pretty safe to say it was an attack 'on parliament', though the last high-profile terrorist knife attack here was perpetrated by a delusional guy currently in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital so it is probably worth waiting for details before reading too much into the politics. fwiw, ISiS haven't claimed it.

You haven't noticed that mowing down pedestrians has become a thing with terrorists? (xp)

I have! It just seems like a separate kind of operation that fucks up ones chances of effectively attacking parliament

fwiw, ISiS haven't claimed it

Do they have anything to lose by claiming it regardless? Always wonder that in these situations.

I mean I would think you'd drive directly to the grounds and then start mowing/stabbing

Idk

One guy armed with a knife is unlikely to effectively attack parliament tbh.

not with that kind of defeatist attitude they're not

Lol

Not sure I can argue with you seriously with that display name, jim, but why do you consider it unlikely?

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, March 22, 2017 1:48 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because an attack at Westminster bearing many of the hallmarks of terrorist attacks carried out across Europe over the last couple of years is far more likely to be a terrorist attack than random violence committed by somebody with mental health or drug problems - something which seems to happen very very rarely in the UK

― it's hardy out there for a Vardy (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 22, 2017 2:00 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with nv

Yeah it's hard to work out the plan in that they obviously wanted to attack Parliament in some way (otherwise why there?) but had a window of perhaps less than a minute to attack civilians en route as a kind of failsafe.

Pretty sure the assailant was aware of the fact he could kill more pedestrians with his car than politicians with his kitchen knife.

LOL

https://twitter.com/GaspardWinckler/status/844619788651499520

Saw this doing the rounds on Twitter earlier and it checked out. Weird/unsettling http://gizmodo.com/coded-4chan-post-hinted-at-westminster-attack-a-day-in-1793527996

So many fake attack warnings will presumably now happen

Pretty sure the assailant was aware of the fact he could kill more pedestrians with his car than politicians with his kitchen knife.

Exactly, hence being relieved that but also being morbidly curious about why there weren't more fatalities (if that was the plan).

I knew there would be some #sadness in their eyes type idiocy today.

A similar type of crime (vehicular homicide) occurred at my local boozer a few weeks back, the perp reversed over the victim after running him over and I know first hand that some quite young people that witnessed it are having trouble processing what they saw and heard.

I can imagine. Ive seen someone be hit by a car and it was horrifying and I'm an adult.

Hope Sadiq Khan refuses to meet Trump when he visits here (based on Fuckface Jr's calling out of Khan for saying, in an old article, that civlian attacks in cities were part of our lives now) and doesn't get too much shit for it.

I mean ideally Trump will be, at the very least, impeached by then but whatever.

didn't think of it till now, but its appearance in the thread title is the first time i ever heard of "portcullis house"

I've never heard the phrase "mother of all parliaments" but I'm certainly making up for lost time.

Mother of Parliaments not Mother of All Parliaments, which sounds slightly like an insult.

Perish the thought.

That 4chan thing is eery.

Reminds me of that Xinoeph Leo or whatever guy who was on Usenet 2 weeks before 9/11 shouting a bunch of weird things about 911 and the end of the world :/

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/114c7e40bebc3853af969de161e1b3f66f968c73/66_0_1060_636/master/1060.jpg

oops

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/23/fake-tube-sign-read-out-bbc-westminster-attack

mostly glad this is fake, but prob says it all that theresa may etc were queuing up to applaud this dire sentiment.

one for the innocent smoothies thread maybe

I could literally vomit...

ffs it's clearly not even handwritten you idiots

(and let's face it it's not a patch on john smeaton's "this is glasgow, we'll set about ye" after the glasgow airport attack)

Some twats on FB, asking why the Union Jack or, perish the thought, St George's Cross, isn't being displayed in solidarity with people of London, like the French flag was after Paris. And the German flag wasn't after Berlin.

revolting and inane - parliament I mean and a lot of the things said there as well as the fake news fake tube sign itself

plus the guardian expose reckons it was read out by labour mp simon hoare when it was actually read out by conservative mp simon hoare

close enough tbf

is there anything stopping these fb twats buying and displaying their own union jack? be the change you want to see in the world guyz

They mean the overlaying of the French flag over FB profile pictures, which was a 'thing' after Paris. Perhaps I could offer to do the ice bucket challenge in solidarity?

it's obvious in these situations that more flags are an important part of the solution

^ gets it

"Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Airstrikes and mortar bombardments killed more than 200 people, including aid workers, in western Mosul on Thursday, according to news reports on separate incidents."

Meanwhile, here is not the main news and probably no resulting FB clamour for the Iraqi flag to be everywhere in tribute.

defiant tea drinking

tea widely drunk in middle east as well tbf

revolting and inane - parliament I mean and a lot of the things said there as well as the fake news fake tube sign itself

i really felt this. there's a real pompous jingoism in the uk parliament when violence is discussed. mps queuing up to say something quotable.

drink tea w milk 4 solidarity with westminster, w/out 4 with Mosul/Yemen/Aleppo &c &c &c &c

it's obvious in these situations that more flags are an important part of the solution

nationalism is a foolproof deterrent against further acts of terror iirc

Eventually had to turn the sound off last night as yet another MP paraded in front of the cameras to do their little party piece.

we can overcome this dark day and get back to fucking up the country mercilessly and irrevocably.

"The police actually despise me and my decimation of their budgets while Home Secretary." -- not Teresa May

i blame algerian goalkeeper tbr

Tory MPs and the plebs policemen who guard them generally get on so well too.

@Conflicts

BREAKING: Antwerp Belgium police say a car tried to enter a shopping street at high speed; one person detained - Reuters

it's obvious in these situations that more flags are an important part of the solution

― it's hardy out there for a Vardy (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 23 March 2017 12:38 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes to this and all that obv but the desperate scrambling to forget 'lets not forget who the real bad guys are here, anyone reacting differently to my a political outlook' after and every thing always amuses and irks in at least equal measure tbh, including my irked reaction and fin

I largely don't care at all tbh except for an ever-swelling hatred for the 24 hour news cycle

Yep, otm, all that

the heartening thing tho is that this attack has sparked such a deep and insightful national conversation about the reasons why a british man would choose to commit an act of terror against his own government

A friend on FB yesterday was explaining to any non-UK friends of his that changing your profile picture to the flag just makes you look like an accidental racist.

Wondering how long this new found affection for London persists, before we're back to being multicultural metropolitan elitists, or whatever they imagine we are in Swindon.

it's obvious in these situations that more flags are an important part of the solution

While problem-solving is best served by rationality, politics has a large component of irrationality. Harnessing that irrationality can sometimes be part of a rational political solution.

A smart politician, imo, would encourage this patriotic display and then frame it as a visible reminder that "we" are much stronger and more united than the terrorists. iow, use the show of solidarity as a way to calm fears, since whipping up fears is contra-indicated by the nature of the problem to be solved.

What patriotic display?

more flags

American media is currently all US politics all the time and it's kind of annoying trying to find any info about this. so I'll just ask here: who was the suspect?

Some guy in his 50s - you'd think he'd know better - from Kent. Supposedly a convert (no surprise there) with a criminal record (no surprise there) who was into bodybuilding (fill in the blanks yrself).

(xp) Thankfully there aren't more flags, I was complaining about a few twats on FB complaining that there aren't more flags. It's London, not Stoke-on-Trent.

so it wasn't that Abu Izzadeen after all, I fuckin knew it

Guys like Abu Izzadeen never actually do anything that would puts guys like Abu Izzadeen in any danger.

is that a quote from Abu Izzadeen

I think that might be Trevor Brooks talking.

Brooks is currently in prison for smuggling himself out of the UK so it's not entirely impossible he was heading to Syria - he was arrested in Hungary, heading for Romania. Shouting at people outside Dalston shopping centre is much more his normal MO though,

I bet he was loving that brief moment of international jihadist fame, now he's just the village idiot again.

He's going to be a rich idiot after the libel trial though!

Am I the only one who read that as 'Trevor Brooking'?

One more victim has died.

I am glad I am not the only one who does not like the rubbish 'we are London, we carry on and drink tea' etc meme stuff!

I also like Tom D's point about London suddenly, briefly, not being 'the metropolitan elite'.
Confusing for David Goodhart.

That reminds me, talk of 'we are a Westminster Village' has been indulged and encouraged ... I wondered what phrase it reminded me of, then remembered: 'the Westminster Bubble'.

Confusing that that despised bubble place is now esteemed and sacred once more.

Spoke too soon about London not being the metropolitan elite, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4340290/Truth-t-like-says-KATIE-HOPKINS.html

The war is between London and the rest of the country. Between the liberals and the right-minded. Between those who think it is more important to tip-toe around the cultures of those who choose to join us, rather than defend our own culture.

So we had it coming in London, we deserved it really.

The guy has been named as Adrian Elms, grew up in Dartford - last jailed in 2003 for stabbing a man in the face outside an Eastbourne nursing home.

The #keepcalmanddrinktea #jesuislondon stuff does make me roll my eyes but I'm just being a grouse. People cope in their own ways and a feature of the city is that a lot of the people here now wouldn't have been in 2005. It doesn't seem particularly representative though. London, like most places, just gets on with things without making a huge fuss about how they're just getting on with things.

Met have corrected the name to Adrian Russell Ajao.

The ad agency Karmarama did the v. popular 'make tea, not war' placards for the anti-Iraq War marches.

I find the whole performative Blitz spirit/twee nationalism thing pretty annoying but I get why people do it. Social media didn't really exist in any significant form when London last had a major terrorist attack but the cues people follow still feel almost automatic by now, especially after Paris.

I haven't seen nearly as much of it as I thought I would

Most people are just getting the fuck on w/it. I got pissed off by Hopkins more than I usually would, but that's about it.

i wish people would stop giving hopkins the attention she craves.

I got pissed off with Hopkins for making people hate people from Devon. On top of everything else. She followed me down the escalator in John Lewis the other week. That's the fourth opportunity I've had to lamp her where I've not taken it.

Jesus, all this British stiff upper lip, 'we just get on with the things', garbage.

At the 2011 census, 36.7% of London's population was foreign born (including 24.5% born outside of Europe). With 3,082,000 residents born abroad in 2014. London has the largest population number (not percentage) of foreign-born.

I'm assuming the Sun etc will be eulogizing all those people who turn up for the anti-Brexit march in London tomorrow for their uniquely British unflappability in the face of danger.

I've seen much more twee tube signs than that fake one tbh, and without the extenuating circumstances of a terrorist attack.

My partner called out the person doing social media for her amateur choir for posting a "pray for London *union jack emoticon*"on twitter.

That's what pisses me off so much about it -- that mix is what makes London great, and some are trying to simultaneously say "well done London pip pip keep 'er stiff" and "that multiculturalism fandango is one failed experiment though, what?". xp

Remember when the USA briefly loved NYC after 9/11?

yeah the sign in itself is obv some horrendous prick's creation but you know, live and let live until theresa may starts applauding it in parliament, like "let's all pull together as we rend the country limb from limb"

xpost

there's a lot of simultaneous contradictory messaging going on e.g. tulip siddiq mp on telly yesterday saying something along the lines of "you will have seen a lot of mps in the chamber this morning we thought it was important to make the effort to be there when ordinarily a lot of mps would be back in their constituencies today to show that it's business as usual" so business as usual is doing something in direct response that is out of the ordinary

"let's all pull together as we rend the country limb from limb"

good stuff

may is so obviously one of the "shut up and let government do OUR work" variety of civil servants. i've encountered plenty of them and she just happens to be one of their stripe who's made it to pm.

Atmosphere of self-congratulation feels distinctly British tbf, distinctly London even. Most people 'getting on with it' in a way that might look vaguely stoical to outsiders because they just don't care very much.

what does "getting on with it" even mean? do we really expect people to start offing themselves or something, or rioting in the streets? most people would prob be fired or disciplined if they didn't turn up for work, most people prob need the money, most people have little or no wiggle-room to do anything other than "get on with it".

I'm assuming the Sun etc will be eulogizing all those people who turn up for the anti-Brexit march in London tomorrow for their uniquely British unflappability in the face of danger

think i read this was cancelled btw so as not to put additional burden on the police?

xp the terrorists will never take away ordinary Londoners' lack of bargaining power in the workplace

it's prob the same in any city where this happens i'd say - people can't resist a chance to aggrandise their simple way of life with false modesty. thinking this is just london might be the flipside of the same trend.

mps inevitably chipping in one by one yesterday to have their pulling-together remarks broadcast some defiant in the face of terror some confirming that theresa may mp speaks for all of us all paying tribute to pc keith palmer and to tobias ellwood mp and then philip davies mp stands up and does the same stuff and mps around the house murmur in agreement giving this absolute scumbag the same veneer of respectability and righteousness that they're all shooting for he should be persona non grata and ignored by any decent mp if they don't want their own remarks to be diminished by association

a lot of the 'getting on with it' is look at all these people who don't want to lose their jobs going to work as if nothing had happened

Most people 'getting on with it' in a way that might look vaguely stoical to outsiders because they just don't care very much.

truth bomb

well that and literally the lack of any alternative. "boss i'm not coming in today. i have a particularly acute case of 'the terrorism'" "oh yeah? get in here before i set ATOS on you"

xposts yes

what does "getting on with it" even mean? do we really expect people to start offing themselves or something, or rioting in the streets? most people would prob be fired or disciplined if they didn't turn up for work, most people prob need the money, most people have little or no wiggle-room to do anything other than "get on with it".

I have been reading people's criticism of this attitude with an increasing sense of exasperation. I think the criticism is harsh, midirected, callous even. I know that saying this doesn't "do any good". I think you insult the intelligence of those who have this attitude to suggest that *they* think that it does. But there is a human need to say something positive in the face of helplessness - we can't defeat spontaneous acts of terrorism by deranged people whose hatred of society and crazed ideology has been bubbling under the surface for years, yet we feel the need to react positively *somehow*. And the "getting on with it" means not being scared, doing what one always does rather than being cowed, i.e. not doing what my Mum did during the time when the IRA were active in the eighties and staying away from the West End "coz of the bombs".

thinking this is just london might be the flipside of the same trend.

Lol, I'm checkmated, well played

Most people 'getting on with it' in a way that might look vaguely stoical to outsiders because they just don't care very much.

don't even think this is callous. it was a horrible attack but as far as worrying about my personal safety goes i'm more in danger of being hit by a car accidentally. if the endpoint of this is banning cars from cities then be my guest.

xpost sorry wasn't trying to zing you or anything

Ha ha, no worries, you're right

I'm gonna do this in ALL CAPS so nobody misses it, so:

THE ANTI-BREXIT MARCH IS STILL HAPPENING.

11am start at Park Lane, a few tweaks to the route in light of events. That's all.

The IRA comparison GG mentions is useful one. I feel roughly the same about this as I used to when the Ra set off a bomb in the city, or at a train station. Sad, but not really fearful in any way, and basically a kind of mental shrug.

what does "getting on with it" even mean?

it's prob the same in any city where this happens i'd say

re: Tobias Ellwood, I did some first aid yesterday, good to know I'm a hero

don't even think this is callous. it was a horrible attack but as far as worrying about my personal safety goes i'm more in danger of being hit by a car accidentally. if the endpoint of this is banning cars from cities then be my guest.

This is it really. I had this conversation with a Spanish woman I work with, who is sort of hippy dippy, where I said I was more likely to be hit by a bus. And not one driven by a jihadist either.

... she's going on the March tomorrow!

and this "London Can Take It" bullshit is regressive bullshit to the extent that it tangles with nationalist shtick, for the same reason that the geniuses behind the Prevent strategy should be strung up for making the central agenda "British Values". I know your British Values are based on multiculturalism and cuddles because you are all lovely reasonable ilxors but out in the rest of the world that phrase is dog-whistle bullshit

Civic pride is one of my pet hates. It was unbearable enough when I lived in Glasgow. Where is that irrationally angry thread?

I wonder if all these blitz spirit lovers realise that the Mass Observation dudes were all basically communists

I think opposition to civic pride is a difficult thing to communicate though, which goes some way to explain its prevalence...if you say you dislike civic pride then people will conclude that you hate your city rather than that you have no reason feel that your city should be considered superior to any other.

Ha I was thinking of Glasgow too. It's the same kind of annoyance for me as with people who take irrational pride in their families and all their little ways. Yes, yes, your family is the only one loyal to a fault who won't let anyone insult anyone in the clan. Yes, your family will beat any other family up. Yes your family loves its Grandad. Xp

I'm pretty indulgent of civic pride in non-London UK cities, because of wanting to see some kind of counterweight, however slight, to intense centralization on the capital. Very un-indulgent when it comes to London, obviously.

on prevent:

Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)

The Prime Minister is dealing with this outrage in a calm and assured way. Does she agree that an effective counter-terrorism strategy designed to prepare, protect and pursue would be inadequate without the strand of prevent? In that vein, will she assure the House that across all 43 constabularies there will be neighbourhood policing teams visible to, and contactable by, the public, which is a crucial strand in feeding information on terrorism to the counter-terrorism organisations?

I'm not gonna quote the actual email but I've had at least one this week assuring me that there will be a heightened police presence in our region this week, so well done Alan

nothing says "don't panic" quite like busies crawling over the place

lol Alan Johnson got cucked by a plod

neighbourhood policing teams visible to, and contactable by, your wife lol

congrats to the police on being able, unlike the doctors and teachers, to actually afford to do their job properly oh wait

I agree with Bananaman!
(Except maybe 'and God created Manchester' stuff which takes it further than London does)

The IRA comparison GG mentions is useful one. I feel roughly the same about this as I used to when the Ra set off a bomb in the city, or at a train station. Sad, but not really fearful in any way, and basically a kind of mental shrug.

I remember being reluctantly mildly freaked out the first commute I did after 7/7, but four simultaneous co-ordinated public transport bombings are different to a seemingly failed and inept attack on the government.

If you know THIS WEEK with Andrew Neil you will know his sarcastic very lengthy monologues (which maybe are slightly comic via being so lengthy?)

Last night he started with a very lengthy diatribe defending PC Keith Palmer and aimed at 'Jihadi Johns' and loudly declaring 'You will never defeat the British'.

It was possibly hard to disagree with any specific item of what he said but I did not feel totally comfortable with the overall impassioned aggression - coming as it did from Andrew Neil.

By 'defending PC Keith Palmer' I meant 'eulogizing' him.

(I don't demur from the admiration / appreciation expressed for this police officer who was killed while defending others.)

tbf andrew neil has a long history of fostering positive relations with people of asian extraction

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT7wAK3nJVyJAFBMM2ICW7ILtuApxW6zHWR6URzjbmGuew5DgWq

conrad: Alan Johnson was also back on THIS WEEK talking about those things

Neil did that after Paris too iirc - can't watch him just hope he's not too upset about the 60 Tories who wrote to complain about BBC's anti-Brexit bias which he's somehow failed to prevent

I often watch some of SUNDAY POLITICS also and it will feature a panel with eg:

Andrew Neil
the political editor of THE SUN
a biographer of David Cameron
+ a Blair supporter

The 'bias' is plain enough but what is even more egregious (?) I find is seeing the SUN person comment on Brexit issues as though he is an honest broker and detached observer rather than a key representative of one of the main (and continuing) drivers of what has happened.

I got pissed off with Hopkins for making people hate people from Devon.

Haha imagine how I feel.

"let's all pull together as we rend the country limb from limb" - that sums up the current message nicely

I heard someone use the expression "into the jaws of death" to describe the prospects of further Tory austerity on LA budgets into the next 4 years. Sadly I don't think any type of "not letting the Tory twats grind you down" type memes will be as prevalent as this current nauseating shit. I suppose it isn't a shock that the majority of people are very susceptible to any type of false modesty nationalistic bollox and will lap that shit up every time it is cynically doled out.

tbf she may be from devon but katie hopkins is not people

If you know THIS WEEK with Andrew Neil you will know his sarcastic very lengthy monologues (which maybe are slightly comic via being so lengthy?)

... where he STARTS OFF TALKING IN A VERY LOUD BOMBASTIC VOICE then gets progressively softer and softer until he's so quiet you've almost got your nose pressed up against the screen trying to hear what he's saying? Anyway, fuck that Unionist cunt, though of course I am filled with civic pride that he hails from my home town, sorry, hame toon.

Yes Tom D. It is a very strange programme -- one where Neil seems able to get away with anything because of the idea that it's too late for anyone to be watching -- so he turns it into a weird comic performance that seems unique on current TV.

(Although I think he is obnoxious and largely perhaps bad for politics I do sometimes think his scripts are, in their way, quite well done, simply in terms of following his peculiar ironic / self-deprecatory tone.)

there is an unappealing noisiness to any sort of civic or national consciousness, the way the media stokes collective anxieties and emotions through a cycle of panic, vulnerability, sentimentality, and then loud protestations of how unaffected everyone is, declaring everything back to normal but now the normality is inscribed by the trauma everyone, at least in the in-group, has felt. I find all the in-group loyalty business very unedifying, when it involves strangers I can't see it as anything other than exclusionary & it betrays a lack of imagination about the rest of the world

otoh southerners chatting shit about anywhere in the north is always unseemly & cannot be tolerated

just saw a couple of coppers hanging around Queen's Gardens and felt a warm glow of safety but when I got closer I realised they were traffic wardens so I went back to being frightened and hateful

You'll find no terrorists idling their engines, pre-killing spree, without getting a parking ticket for their troubles

just saw a couple of coppers hassling a homeless guy in the west end of glasgow - good work lads, that jakey was probably radicalised by isis years ago

fallen officer was a Charlton fan so our webforum is currently a shrine to him (fair enough) and people are discussing how to pay tribute to him at our next match (fair enough), such as displaying his face on the big screen throughout the game (hmm) or renaming our east stand after him (now wait a second)

where will it end, i ask you???

a 21 gun salute with a geordie male police choir singing Candle In The Wind should suffice. Sorry I know something tragic has happened, but I can't stand the way they present these things at football matches. I don't go to football to be an extra in Triumph Of The Will.

Triumph of the 'Wall

lol! *only just gets the new dn*

NOODLE VAGUE

Lost of tabloid front pages and editorials are going for a "coward" angle including the sun and star calling him a snivelling coward which seems like a weird and inappropriate word to use. What's cowardly here?

The vehicular homicides were cowardly, but then charging at armed police with only a knife would earn you a posthumous medal if you were to do it as an armed forces combatant.