I expect some criticism for saying this. But allowing terrorism to disrupt our democratic processes incentivises terrorists. Personal attention seeking, and the idea that their self-sacrifice will have an impact on the world, is part of the deranged psychology that motivates suicide bombers. To suspend the election campaign again following another dreadful terrorist attack, actually will boost the prestige of the act in the eyes of their supporters and potential future terrorists. If we react in this way, we are promoting the chances of a wave of such attacks every time we have an election.
I abhor and condemn last night’s attack and am dreadfully sorry for all victims, dead and injured, and for their family and friends. But it would serve the memory of the dead better if we reacted by continuing calmly with our democracy, and showed that their killers cannot win, cannot affect us.
I agree. Best to carry on whilst remembering those who have died.
To be fair, the former Govt do have to do some governing in the aftermath, & they can’t go on campaigning while they’re doing it.
It needs to be a much shorter hiatus than the previous one though.
Up to a point, Jan. Maybe I am biased having been one, but the senior civil servants as always will do 99% of the work anyway. This is hardly the first time there has been a knife attack in London, and the civil servants, police and security services will be pressing ahead – there are few if any real decisions for ministers to take. So it will require a little time, yes, but not much.
I don’t think it’s an unpopular view craig I think most would agree. Except the Tories
Perhaps we could study how the Palestinians, Yemenis, Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis and Bahrainis cope when they are attacked with cylinder bombs, by the radicalised RAF, USAF, Saudi Head-chopper Air Force, Armée de l’air, Luftwaffe etc?
I suppose that the alleged attackers in London are dead, while their analogues fly hone for tea and medals?
Well said K Crosby.
I was remembering earlier today how much the royal family have participated in the propaganda for war from 2001 to date.
P Harry in Afghanistan. Help the Heroes. Invictus Games. Brize Norton processions of hearses. Camilla at Harry Patch’s funeral when he had said he did not want a big funeral. Those silly promenaders waving their little union flags when Jerusalem was being sung. (The same happened in the local cathedral. I stayed seated)
On and on, the propaganda for war on brown skinned peoples in the Middle East and Near East was churned out and is still being poured out. Sickening.
Reposting Volrairenet.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article187299.html
” According to the figures explored here, total deaths from Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan since the 1990s – from direct killings and the longer-term impact of war-imposed deprivation – likely constitute around 4 million (2 million in Iraq from 1991-2003, plus 2 million from the “war on terror”), and could be as high as 6-8 million people when accounting for higher avoidable death estimates in Afghanistan.
Such figures could well be too high, but will never know for sure. US and UK armed forces, as a matter of policy, refuse to keep track of the civilian death toll of military operations – they are an irrelevant inconvenience.”
These attacks are not revenge. The same clerical fascists are killing mostly Muslims (and Leftists and religious minorities) in Muslim countries. We need to stop making excuses for them.
“a knife attack” – I’m sure you meant to say “a terrorist attack using an automobile and knives”.
I agree. Think Peston’s snap survey on twitter is showing same view too.
Craig, you can have whatever view you like, this domestic terror is part of the colonising powers and their political Muslim agents toolbox, like torture, rendition, and everything else. I find it quite shocking that you don’t see three incidents in one election as Tory desperation to remain in power. We can’t fight against colonialism because they’ve got all the tanks, the bribes, the nuclear weapons pointing 24/7 at us. But we can at least neutralise the effect of the tools they can use against us by understanding that terror is one item in the coloniser toolbox. Drrrr.
I find it hard to understand why we see the support the UK gives to terrorists in Syria and we don’t see the quid pro quo that they can bring a bit of that vomit back home when it suits the needs of Tory Racist colonisers Inc.
Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?
I don’t think Five is orchestrating these attacks but retaliation is a predictable result of British state collaboration with American Caesar and his regional mini-me’s, the Saudi head-chopping perverts, the occupationist head-choppers and the Gulf princelings.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Considering the likelihood that these guys are gonna be 3 pot smoking drops outs whose understanding on geo-politics ends with vaguely knowing how to spell Syria, i’m not sure there’s much cause and effect going on here.
It is certainly long past time that this question is part of public discussion. Is there any evidence that governments and ruling classes generally have used false flag plots for political objectives? Yes, plenty. So why are we forbidden from considering out loud the possibility that such things are possible in Britain? Only because it challenges illusions about the moral righteousness of our rulers.
However, one must wear very rose tinted glasses to think that people who sign off on decisions to bomb people in other countries in what are ultimately aggressive colonial wars, would somehow make a distinction between those acts, and acts of killing other human beings closer to home. It would seem a fair conclusion that they stopped listening to their consciences many moons ago. Power and wealth is all that matters. Morals don’t come into it.
If in any doubt, the unnecessary institutional violence of austerity, which some reports cite as causing 30,000 deaths in the UK, should be sufficient to prove the point: they feel no compunction making decisions that cause deaths amongst the home population.
Inescapable logic.
The Ever-Growing List of ADMITTED False Flag Attacks. The state use of violence and terror for political purposes is common and has a long history.
Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/03/false-flags-4.html
Yip good link, similar can be found here.
http://yournewswire.com/60-false-flags-admitted-by-presidents-politicians-generals-and-spies/
Thanks for supplying the links.
I would like to ask readers of this blog who are working in the armed forces, to speak up.
Someone has information, and a conscience. It’s jolly well time to put and to this charade with pertinent leak.
The only vomit I see here is yours. After every terrorist attack you come up with the same garbage that blames the West rather than the perpetrators, and excuses your religion for any responsibility for those who distort its aims and objectives. The Islamofascists (for that that is what they are) are the responsibility of you and your religion – just like the Inquisition and Catholic Church supporting Hitler are the responsibility of Christianity you cannot ignore the perpetrators responsibility and pass it to the “colonisers”.
Nobody is assigning blame. Whereas your logic is bit like investigating why a train crash happened by ignoring the track, the train, the driver, the conditions and the situation, because doing so might be a “blame game.”
As flaming straw men go, you are on fire.
Good point, well made, J.
?????
“You got close to Robert Gates, and he worked for you when he was on his way up, right?
RM: That’s correct.
RS: OK, and he wrote a very interesting book. And in that book, he said the Afghan problem, and the problem of the whole Muslim world, really, started with our luring the Russians—the Soviets—into Afghanistan. . . .
we now know from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s famous interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, he was in the Carter administration and he said: We lured the Soviets in there because we wanted to give them their Vietnam. And in defense, he said: So what’s a few riled-up Muslims? We ended the Cold War because the Soviets ground to a halt in Afghanistan. Well, a few riled-up Muslims is what the war on terrorism is all about, and it’s shaped the whole world for the last 20 years. But it’s interesting, in Gates’s book he very categorically states: We intervened in Afghanistan before the Russians entered on the side of the guy who was actually the leader of the country at that time.”
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/former_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_cias_history_faulty_intelligence_20170428
Cancellation of the election would be a victory for terrorism – a day’s reflection on this latest horror is surely welcome, particularly if that reflection can also take in an appalling and divisive election campaign at the same time.
Elections are democratic so the vote on 8 June isn’t an election.
Spot on!
I’m not sure a government can suspend an election once it’s been set in motion, Craig’s only talking about the campaigning. They will probably have to leave it till tomorrow though now
Politicians should simply reflect on what has happened and campaign in a dignified way seeking to explain their own policies and doing so without stoking fear or castigating their opponents. For example I would be pleased to hear from Rory Stewart and Jacob Rees Mogg rather than May. I would trust them to campaign in a decent way.
This attack shows how incapable they are. An attack with knives. Just knives. And for three of them dead the casualties are relatively few in number. I can think of several ways to kill a lot more people than they manage too – but won’t say of course.
The only way they’ll get a real ‘return’ on this is when people have an overblown reaction to it – including as ever, the media.
Someone of another site suggested checkpoints in London. Why didn’t we get this kind of reaction when people were being blown to pieces in Iraq because the checkpoints were ‘guarded’ with fake British bomb detectors. Oh yeah, the fraudsters got prosecuted eventually – one got a suspended sentence.
Iraqis don’t count though do they, just westerners. Iraq Body Count have documented 175,660 – 196,408 civilian casualties in Iraq since 2003. Theresa May voted for that… does she resign as an MP… no its just carry on regardless. Become Prime Minister… make Churchillian-like speeches. The British establishment that helped lay waste to Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan have a complete blind spot for that context which motivates these people.
Fair enough analysis.
I’m slightly concerned that they’ll change their tactics to places where such a response would be unlikely.
IBC is bogus and massively underestimates US-collaborator killings, like it’s supposed to.
I remember Iraq Body Count being much disparaged until much higher estimates from academic studies came out, the media then fell back on citing IBC as to why the higher estimates were flawed.
I agree entirely, Craig.
I agree with you and I’m sure many others will too. To stop our democratic process may be the aim. Let us not let that happen.
The election may have something to do with the timing. But the aim is to kick back against what ‘we’ do to them. Its a really primitive, you bomb us – we bomb you. That’s the aim. Every time their videos emerge or people who knew them talk about their motives. That’s what comes out.
But every OTHER aim gets trotted out… usually the meaningless… ‘they want to destroy our way of life’. They want to kick back. But that’s talked about as an “excuse”, usually in the phrase “there’s no excuse”. So people are shut down from even talking about their real motives.
I condemn you for using such a grotesque American illiteratism as “incentivise”; try “encourage” or “is an incentive” next time please.
Could have been worse. I could have spelt it with a z.
Aaaaaaaagh!
But the OED does!!!!
Agree totally in the meantime the BBC builds up the hysteria
The stooges on COMbbc news always squeal with excitement when there’s an unusual death. Starving in a garret or dying of black lung isn’t box-office. Sadly RT News, the nearest think to an honest tv news channel, is going the same way.
This screenshot from the Independent last night, unfortunately, says all that need be said:
https://image.ibb.co/jQy8JF/Untitled_1.jpg
I don’t think 3 terrorist attacked in 6 weeks is going to play well for Ms Strong and Stable is it?
“Wrong and Incapable,” or “Strange and unlikeable,” it’s a tough call.
#WeakAndWobbly ?
On the contrary, the public will now back her hoping that she’ll keep them safe, I’ll be surprised if the polls don’t show a halt to the Tory hemorrhaging of points.
would have been a lot better if the previous one hadn’t managed to shut down a major railway terminus for a week as well.
This is yet another attack in which the Killers only wanted to accomplish two things: more war in the middle East and getting killed themselves.
If you want to stop these terrorist attacks, here is what you should do:
1. Stop the wars in the Middle East
2. Don’t kill the perpetrators, but give them a fair trial from which you can learn a thing or two.
Outrage is not the answer.
No, what always comes out is that they wanted less war in the middle East. Specifically not things like the invasion of Iraq, the RAF bombing of Raqqa and so on.
The same day as the last London attack more civilians were killed in a coalition airstrike near Raqqa than died in London. very little coverage.
Where was the outrage against that? These people probably had it? These people will have thought they were doing the right thing. Misguided of course. Now, how many people in the British establishment and media still claim invading Iraq was the right thing?
While it is always preferable to arrest and try the suspects, this appears to have been a situation where the attack was ongoing and lethal force was legitimate to stop it. If more evidence emerges that suggests otherwise, I will revise my view. JC de Menezes and Harry Stanley, among others, both demonstrate how the police can and do get it badly wrong without excuse. But we on the left do ourselves no favours when without evidence, we criticise the police who brought the killings to an end.
I agree with your first point. I hope that the reaction to this incident will be that more people realise we can’t go on doing what we have done for the past two decades, and that we need to try something completely different as Corbyn proposes.
“Don’t kill the perpetrators, but give them a fair trial from which you can learn a thing or two.”
Alas the perps, never seem to survive, to tell their tale, I wonder why that is?
Perhaps because they’re on a suicide mission?
With fake explosive belts..hmmm.
How does that work?
there’s only one party that stands to gain from pausing election campaigning.
not very strong and stable to hit pause on the universe every time a nutter does a mad thing.
really lookin like these incidents are linked to the election. i wonder if this time the perps were also ignored by security services after tip offs, and if they also were allowed to go to Libya to kill people then let back in with no oversight that we might have a dialogue about why & how this is really happening, but i doubt it.
I note that the terror alert was not at critical – “attack imminent” – yesterday when an attack was imminent.
To me that says one of two things. The first possibility is that the intelligence services can never really know when an attack is imminent and the threat levels are irrelevant. The second option is that they can, but missed this one – and Manchester – which begs the question whether they have the resources they need to detect and stop these attacks. If the latter is the case, then the party in power has to bear some responsibility for the situation.
Ultraviolet how dare you question our security – it’s strong and stable dontcha know?!
I agree. If we let terrorism paralyse the democratic process then those behind the attacks win. We must not allow that.
Absolutely agree. Afghanistan and Iraq, to name but two countries, have had to carry on through much worse situations.
If it was me or mine I would want the election to go ahead. I’d also want people to consider actions and consequences, past and future, when voting.
As I say craig is taking about the Campaign – not the actual election – I don’t think they can cancel it – the government has already been dissolved
I wholeheartedly agree Craig.
My thoughts are with all caught up in this horror and condolences to the families and friends of those who have been killed.
I agree with your view. Indeed, sadly, there is the possibility of other such incidents during the coming week until Election Day. I think we express our sympathies sincerely to the victims and their families and I think we all show a sense of purpose in going on and doin, as far as is possible, the kinds of things we had intended to do.
After the election there must be a serious investigation for the motivations behind these attacks, both locally and internationally, and we must seek to create the kind of society in which the greatest number of people have a reasonable stake, so that it is more inclusive and which many more people want to sustain so that policing by consent and the kind of intelligence this will provide will provide a communal security.
before that there must be a serious investigation of the attacks themselves.
For example, why did intelligence services ignore a dozen specific warnings, including one from FBI, about Salman Abedi? As Home Secretary, how many briefings did Amber Rudd receive on Abedi before Manchester and when did these briefings take place? If none, despite all the warnings, why not?
Why was Abedi allowed to travel to and from Libya despite several specific warnings?
What contact did intelligence agencies have with Abedi before his murder spree and when did these contacts take place?
No arguments here. I’d just add that some terrorism is designed deliberately in order to provoke the knee-jerk anti-terrorism response that you’re warning against.
If governments make it known that they’re willing to put in place repressive legislation in response to terror attacks (or the population is willing to go vote for parties that support such measures), some groups with fascist inclinations will decide that that’s how best to lobby for more repression. You don’t have to go far for examples – the Italian strategy of tension in the 1970s, for instance, or, even closer to home, a fair number of the bombings conducted by the UVF in the early days of the Northern Irish Troubles.
Entirely agree. Pressure on the Saudis to stop supporting ISIS would undoubtedly be effective… but the USA would not allow it. In fact, regime change in Saudi Arabia would be far the best answer….
BBC saying the restart of campaigning will be determined by the tone of Mays coming statement . We’re being told it’s in the hands of the Tories.
Maybe for the BBC. They appear to have completely lost their moral authority.
I agree with you Craig. We must carry on as normal and treat these attacks as minor diversions. If we allow them to disrupt our democracy there is a danger they will concentrate on those democratic events.
Delaying the election wouldn’t be a victory for the terrorists.
Unless the timing is a coincidence, the terrorists are plainly trying to panic people into voting for a certain party over another.
Perhaps they are trying to create an atmosphere of chaos to discredit May, but more likely the evil people behind these attacks are desperate for May to be re-elected so she follows American orders and joins a war against Syria (among other places).
Holding an election when the last days of campaigning have been disrupted and one issue dominates the agenda would be a victory for the terrorists, never mind the safety implications.
We were told the country was safe after Manchester and the authorities knew what was going on. That plainly isn’t so.
But at the moment I think that it is an open question as to whether that plays to the “steady as she goes, run to mummy” tendency or the “For God’s sake, the people in power have got it badly wrong, it is time to try something different” strand of thinking.
I hope like hell it is the latter.
It would be appropriate to suspend campaigning if one couldn’t trust oneself not to make political capital. Party leaders should speak and agree to defer from speaking on this issue until after the election.
Fwl,
Isn’t this a major voting issue? Their really is no need to suspend the campaign any further than today – so the papers can have their death wank over it. Otherwise it would just drown out all the other issues.
What became clear from the reports after the Manchester attack was that our security services had either lost control of known terrorist elements, or else had themselves directed these elements.
As the Prime Minister has not as yet sacked her Home Secretary, then it falls to us, the voters, to remove them all from power.
An interesting read.
https://www.autonomyscotland.org/corbyn-would-be-a-great-pm-but-progressive-scots-should-look-elsewhere/
Good arguments.
Progressive scots should look for another Tory Majority? Hmmm risky recommendation in my view.
Jeremy Corbyn’s statement has said “The Labour will be suspending campaigning until this evening, after consultations with other parties, as a mark of respect for those who have died and suffered injury.”
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/871273815103475712/photo/1
Suspending campaigning for a few hours when the media is going to be full of views and speculation about the attack anyway is one thing. Suspending or delaying the election itself quite another. I just hope the security services will be geared up for any potential attacks on polling stations.
However Theresa May has and will all over our tv screens, pushing her strong and stable mantra.
You’ve got to admire Mrs May’s thrift in squeezing three terror attacks into a few weeks before the election. At a time of limited resources, ( except for global capitalists and neo-cons ) it is a much better use of limited police counter -terrorism resources and politicians’ limited sympathy towards the public resources to concentrate the false-flags into a limited space of time.
Well done May for showing us how to do efficiency savings so more money can be used on drones.
This strikes me as about the right level of response.
Yep.
“I abhor and condemn-”
Im not doing this anymore. Jumping to their tune, it’s just a given. I think those who expect and demand this conformation very suspect. It does nothing to think it awful.
They print that and the explanation is filled in by whatever some anti-muslim shit has to say.
If there is a constitutional role for the Crown then at moments such as this, when there are no MPs and we are in between parliaments and the media can speak of nothing but the attack then the Crown should invite all leaders to continue their campaigns with respect for one another and to focus not on the shock of the attack, but on the substantive and positive aspects of their manifestos. I don’t suggest any further role for the Crown. In other words as per the poster which includes the symbol of the Crown keep calm and carry on in a dignified way.