I haven’t blogged over the past weekend because, as have most other Britons, I’ve been following the news about the attempted bombings in London and the incendiary attack on Glasgow airport. From a media junkie’s perspective alone it was an event of note – the photos, posted almost as it was happening, were incredible. And it made a change from the endless rain and floods.
But setting sheer news value aside for the moment I’m sure I can’t be the only one whose first reaction was “How very convenient for Gordon Brown – bloody typical Labour PR stunt, an ‘attack’ in his first week so he can act the calm, resolute leader.” In the light of so many scandals bubbling under, these latest outrages seems all too horribly convenient. Or something very like that.
Two remarkable things happened in the last two days within half a mile of each other, at either end of Piccadilly. One, the car bomb, you have probably heard of. The second you probably haven’t.
This is a straight reproduction of a small article from The Metro newspaper, Friday June 29, 2007
“Mossad Spy” Found DeadAn Egyptian financier accused of spying for Israel has been found dead outside his London home in mysterious circumstances. Ashraf Marwan was alleged to have worked for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad during the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria. He was accused of tipping Israel off about the war. Police said “He appears to have fallen from a balcony. The death is being treated as unexplained.” The 62 year old son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was found on Wednesday in St James’s, Central London.
The fact that these two incidents are less than ten minutes walk apart does not make them connected. They may or may not be. But I note this, and the list above, to help those who have difficulty imagining that there is any need to consider any possibility other than Islamic terrorism to explain the apparent Haymarket car bomb. Astonishing things do happen in London.
More…
Even the fact that there were (mercifully) no fataiities seems to support conspiracy, such are the depths of cynicism to which New Labour has brought us, with its exaggerations, lies and ridiculous security theatre.
So I fully expected the usual flurry of hyperbolic government press releases and a rash of pointless security crackdowns – No cars within 5 miles of an airport! Exclusion zones around London nightclubs! Round up the usual suspects!- but surprisingly. it hasn’t happened, although the tabloids have been doing their best to whip up public panic. On the whole the government’s response has been unexpectedly rational.So my initial reaction was tempered somewhat by the lack of hoohah.
But now I just don’t know what to think; the pendulum is swinging wildly as new facts emerge.
Peiple have been arrested already, which is good, well done police – but isn’t that speed of arrest in itself suspicious? Then it turns out the arrestees are not British and several are on the run – one is a middle-eastern doctor – and the pendulum swings the other way.
Could this be Saudi money funding terror plots as payback for BAE? Who knows? The policing of terrorism is an area where truth has historically been a shifting thing, construed according to the political expediency of the moment. Consider Lockerbie, for instance.
I will give the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith credit, though and not just because she’s female. She has managed to come over as calm and competent in stark contrast to her predecessor John Reid, who took trouble to be as threatening and unpleasant in demeanour as possible to mask his essential incompetence and weakness.
(But if you think she’s a real change, don’t – as Chief Labour whip, Smith has been responsible for enforcing MP’s compliance in voting for all Blair’s plans. When it comes to Iraq, she’s up to it in her neck, just like her new boss.)
I just don’t know what those attacks were all about, and neither does anyone else except those involved. Conspiracy or actual attack? Does it really matter? It’s all distraction. It’s the effect that aimed at that’s important, whoever’s responsible, and the anticipated response to the attacks was fear. So I am glad to see that people don’t seem to be giving into it, despite ridiculous headlines like ‘Britain Under Seige’ from rightwing redtops like the Daily Mail.
I mean bloody hell, we’re the generation that grew up under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation and IRA violence, when there was a bomb a week and you couldn’t go to a city centre pub without fear of immolation, when planes were regularly hijacked and an Olympic team was massacred. Remember the coach full of military families blown up on the motorway? The IRA, ETA. Red Brigade, Fatah – those were household names. Oh, we took precautions: remember when the streets became a public rubbish dump when all the bins were sealed after Bishopsgate to stop bombs being hidden in them? But life went on. This is nothing. We will not succumb to US-style pissypants crybabyism.
Gordion Brown’s certainly been trying to make the most of it: you could see him yesterday being given the solemn-faced, dramatically-lit interview by Andrew Marr, heavily powdered to hide his 5 o’ clock shadow, three-quarter-posed for the camera so as to look statesmanlike, jowls wobbling with suppressed ’emotion’, doing his best to come over as the solid rock of sanity in a crisis. (Haha. Ahahhahahahaha.)
When I see him do that, the pendulum swngs back towards conspiracy again. But then I remind myself, these attacks are nothings. They’re mere squibs. Whoever’s responsible for this latest bit of terrorist agitprop, a few mad individuals or a grand organised conspiracy, it really doesn’t matter. We need to treat the ‘war on terror’ as the sideshow it is. We’ve got a real threat facing us and it’s bigger than any government plot or terrorist outrage.
Europe
To fly from the UK to Italy last week was like crossing continents: Britain’s cold rain gave way to suffocating heat and a ferocious scirocco, the hot Saharan wind, in Sicily. The Fiat car plant was closed after employees refused to work in the heat. Fires were burning in southern Italy, with Calabria (24 blazes) and Puglia (22) worst affected. In Greece, seven people have died. Firefighters and soldiers are battling a fire which has destroyed much of Mt Arnitha National Park, and threatens Athens. Peter Popham
Australia
From the worst drought in a century to the worst floods in decades, Australians are wondering what will come next. Severe storms have battered the east coast, causing major flooding in New South Wales. In the low-lying Gippsland region of Victoria, hundreds of people had to abandon homes and businesses at the weekend after rivers burst their banks. Helicopters rescued residents as floods engulfed houses, barns and paddocks, leaving cattle stranded. Floods have also hit the Newcastle area, north of Sydney, leaving nine people dead. Another attempt is being made to refloat the Pasha Bulker, a coal freighter swept on to a sandbank just off a Newcastle beach three weeks ago.Kathy Marks
Americas
The first days of summer in the United States have seen fire and water combine with devastating effect. Wildfires around Lake Tahoe, California, have consumed more than 250 homes. Fire chiefs predict that the week-old fire should finally be brought under control by tomorrow. Boston broke high temperature records on Wednesday while black-outs in a sweltering New York City stranded a quarter of a million commuters. Meanwhile Texas and Oklahoma, until recently struggling with drought, have been hit with record rains and widespread flooding. Storms in the southern plains left 11 people dead.David Usborne
[…]
The world over, people are getting the message that the planet is ailing. Results last week from an unprecedented poll in 46 countries by the US-based Pew Research Centre showed environmental degradation is the number one concern of people around the world, eclipsing worry even about nuclear attacks, ethnic rivalries or Aids.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” says David Masur, director of PennEnvironment, an environmental advocacy group in Pennsylvania. “We’re not even at the tipping point yet, in terms of the worst of the worst.”
British people have had a taste of the real danger themselves this past week and they don’t like it. About 27,000 homes and 5,000 businesses have been affected by flooding and storms with insurers estimating the cost at over a billion pounds.
It’s gradually sinking in (if you’ll excuse the pun) that we’ve got much more imminent threats to worry about than car-bombing.
