Read this in the mirrror the other day:
'Meanwhile, David Blunkett delivered a moving message to the victims of the London bombs - apologising for being unable to save them.
A card attached to a bouquet of white carnations and roses he laid outside King's Cross station read: "In sorrow that I was not able to do more to save you, Rt Hon. David Blunkett MP."
He arrived unannounced on Tuesday evening with his guide dog and bowed his head in silent prayer.
As Home Secretary at the time of the September 11 attacks., before resigning over a visa scandal in December, he was keenly aware of the risk to London.
And he went into battle over ID cards, religious hatred and control orders.'
It reminded me that at the time Blunkett was ridiculed for saying that London could be the target of a 'dirty bomb'. Obviously that doesn't sound so silly now.
Here's the BBC's coverage of the Terrorism Bill at the time. I wondered whether fellow Bloggers' positions on the terrorism bill have been changed by the recent events in London - I think mine probably have.
4 comments:
I think those are really excellent points. Where I think my thoughts have changed following 7/7 is on the lessening of the burden of proof when it comes to detaining suspected terrorists. Before I think I was also probably against ... now I'm not so sure.
An interesting article which gives a French Judge's perspective on the problems the UK faces in combating terrorism.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/31/nblur231.xml
That article dug up by Andy is excellent:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/31/nblur231.xml
'Britain can't deal with terrorism'
Telegraph
31/07/2005
Britain had believed itself immune from international terrorism because it had given asylum to extremists. ... "Until recently Britain had wrongly imagined that it could play the politics of sanctuary, that the groups based in the UK did not pose an immediate risk to the country," ... "One of the great differences between us [France] and the UK is that our system is based on repression. We prevent by repression and repression creates prevention." ... A key weapon in the French armoury was the charge of "associating with a wrongdoer", he said. "It means we can intervene before there is an attack". ... "They say we [the French] are hard and we are," said Mr Bruguière. "But our system is efficient and unique in Europe. Since 1998 we have stopped groups that we know, had we not stopped them, would have carried out bombing campaigns in France."
More from today's Times on how Britain's reponse to Islamo-terrorism compares poorly with other European countries:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1716156,00.html
Fundamentally, we're useful idiots
Times
01/08/05
Elements within the British establishment were notoriously sympathetic to Hitler. Today the Islamists enjoy similar support. In the 1930s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats and the Daily Mail; this time it is left-wing activists, The Guardian and sections of the BBC. They may not want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots.
Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others. Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them. Islamists, like Hitler, decree that the punishment for homosexuality is death. Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans, while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels. Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate. The Nazi party used terror to achieve power, and from London to Amsterdam, Bali to New York, Egypt to Turkey, Islamists are trying to do the same.
...
With one of the smallest Muslim populations in Western Europe, just 3 per cent of the total, Britain has been able to afford a joyful multicultural optimism. Other countries, with far bigger Islamic populations, from France to Germany to the Netherlands, have had to become far more hard-headed.
...
The BBC and The Guardian regularly give space to MAB [Muslim Association of Britain] to promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views. John Ware, one of the BBC’s most-respected reporters, spent years trying to make a programme on Islamic fundamentalism in Britain, but was repeatedly blocked by senior editors who feared it was too sensitive. Last month it emerged that The Guardian employed a journalist, Dilpazier Aslam, who is a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that wants a global theocracy, and is described by the Home Office as “anti-Semitic, anti-Western and homophobic”. The Guardian used Dilpazier Aslam to report not just on the London bombings, but on Shabina Begum, the Luton schoolgirl who, advised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, won a court case allowing her to wear head-to-toe fundamentalist Islamic clothes.
The tale illustrates Britain’s naivety in many ways. Hizb ut-Tahrir is still legal, despite being banned in many European and Muslim countries, and despite President Musharraf of Pakistan pleading with Britain to ban it after it plotted to assassinate him. The useful idiots of the Left insisted that Ms Begum’s victory was a victory over Islamophobia, but even the Muslim Parliament of Britain gave warning that it was a “victory for fundamentalism”, bringing Shariah law one step closer.
In France, by contrast, the government ban on wearing the hijab, or Islamic veil, in schools was widely supported by the Left. It is impossible in France for radical Islamists to dupe useful idiots into supporting a pro-hijab campaign presenting it as pro-choice, as they did in Britain — because in France, the Left knows that the Islamists believe Muslim women should be compelled to wear the hijab.
Here the Government talks about deporting extremist imams, but does nothing. In contrast, France has deported ten radical imams in the past two years, with another one deported to Algeria last week, and ten more are under police surveillance. In France, no mosque is off limits to the police. While Britain welcomes Sheikh al-Qaradawi, Germany last week deported an imam who simply supported the Muslim Brotherhood. In Bavaria alone, 14 “hate preachers” have been deported since November 2004, and a further 20 have received notifications of deportation.
Meanwhile on the youth section of Islamic Society of Britain website:
" Children as young as 11 are being targeted by radical Muslims who appear to have infiltrated a mainstream Muslim website..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article302698.ece
Good investigative work by the Independent on Sunday. Read it before it disappears.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article302698.ece
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