Good morning.
Streatham incident
A part of London I know slightly but not well. A couple of times, c.1980, I had a beer in the pub just about where the incident occurred. A few times, round about the same year, I had a milkshake or whatever in the local McDonalds (the first one I had ever patronized, I believe, and quite possibly the last, except for the odd visit to the ones in Victoria Street and at Marble Arch, and one in Maryland). I also had a (dishonest and generally non-paying) Sri Lankan instructing solicitor in Streatham in the early 1990s; I attended her office for a reception once. She killed herself a few weeks later. I think that the last time I was in Streatham was probably about 25 years ago.
Leaving aside reminiscence, it seems that the Government response to the latest terrorist incident is to say that —ill-defined— “terror” convicts will in future have to serve more or less their full sentence, rather than be released on licence earlier (most prisoners get out at half-time).
Tweets about the incident, many misinformed or simply laughable, now rain down…as do comments by the sort of idiot-MPs we now have in Parliament. For example, here is Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Streatham, who went to the scene of the attack. She said: “The perpetrator didn’t serve his full sentence, which is questionable – what is more questionable is why he needed to be under surveillance. If someone needs to be under surveillance it brings the question on why they were released in the first place.” [Guardian]
This is what Wikipedia says about her:
“Ribeiro-Addy was born and raised in Streatham, growing up on a council estate on Brixton Hill. She is Christian and of Ghanaian descent.[3][4] Privately educated at the independent Streatham & Clapham High School, Ribeiro-Addy graduated as a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science with Ethics & Philosophy of Science from the University of Bradford later gaining a Master of Arts in Medical Law & Ethics at Queen Mary University of London, awarded in 2007, and a Graduate Diploma in Law at BPP Law School, awarded in 2015.[5] She was the National Black Students’ Officer for the National Union of Students (NUS) from 2008 to 2010, national co-ordinator of the Student Assembly Against Racism, and the national convenor of the NUS’ Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism campaign.”
So…Bell Ribeiro-Addy has, as well as her grand-sounding but probably rather easy first degree and (ditto or double…) Masters’ degree, a “graduate diploma in law”, yet she seemingly cannot understand the simple concept that people are released from prison according to strict rules and regulations under law. They cannot be kept in prison for arbitrary reasons. This is the UK, not a banana republic like Ghana, from where Ms. Ribeiro-Addy’s parents came. The UK may be becoming a banana state, and MPs such as Ms. Ribeiro-Addy are accelerating that process, but we are, thankfully, not quite there yet. I feel a blog article in my “Deadhead MPs” series coming on…
The “Secret Barrister” on Twitter, often worth reading, has this to say about the governmental response:
It will be recalled that I have previously blogged about Dominic Cummings, Boris-idiot’s lunatic-in-chief:
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/les-eminences-grises-of-dystopia/
Boris-idiot, Dominic Cummings and Priti Patel at the head of domestic policy; what could possibly go wrong?…
“Secret Barrister” adds:
The tweeter below attacks the “Secret Barrister”, but he himself has little (in fact nothing) intelligent to say, which means that he has a good chance of becoming a “Conservative” MP at some point in the future, so long as the Jew lobby does not dislike him.
Another tweeter seems to imagine that the terror attack might have been stopped, had the local police station still been open and full of police, though she adds a rider:
https://twitter.com/Nadine_Writes/status/1224022338842300417?s=20
Thus speaks a would-be “journalist” who writes for the Huffington Post joke “newspaper”. Her assignment for today? To look up the meaning of the word “uncanny”…Her usage reminds me of how (until someone told him he sounded stupid) Barack Obama would, in almost every second or third sentence, use the word “extraordinary”, and with great sonority…
As to the police, I do not see how their response can be faulted. They took out the terrorist only minutes (perhaps less than one minute) after he started his rampage.
It may be that the terrorist knew or assumed that he was under close surveillance, and that that was why he stole a knife rather than simply buying one with cash: had he bought one, the watchers would have assumed that he was about to attack; he probably underestimated the skill of the surveillance people, thinking that he could steal a knife without anyone seeing that he had done so. Having said that, some witnesses are saying that the terrorist took the knife openly. If that is right, my theory falls and I do not know what to think except that maybe the terrorist was seeking some spurious Islamist “martyrdom”, i.e. “suicide by cop”.
The governmental response is pathetic. The terrorist had served a relatively short sentence. Had he had to serve the remaining months, would that have changed anything? No.
Now, while it is true that most (the vast majority of) Muslims in the UK would not commit such acts, or (arguably) even support them if done by others, a certain percentage of that Muslim population would either do them or support them. Active would-be terrorists are few.
There are, officially, about 2,660,000 Muslims in the UK, so the real figure may be about 3 million. Let us say that 1 in 10,000 is a terrorist or a would-be terrorist. That’s still 300. Not huge, but the State does not have the resources to keep 300 possible terrorists under 24/7 surveillance. What if the ratio is 1:1,000? That would be 3,000 terrorists. You see the problem. It takes dozens of operators, or at least 20 as a minimum, to keep close surveillance on even one person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 300 x 20 = 6,000 officers. 3,000 x 20 = 60,000 officers. No can do. Even if the number of police/MI5 etc needed is only 3,000, the burden is still too heavy. It’s not possible.
The only long-term solution is for the UK to become a relatively-homogenous ethnostate.
Brexit
Me like…
Global cooling?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/warnings-weather-mini-ice-age-21418120
If that were to happen, Greta Nut would “top” herself…
Mike Hoare
The legendary contract soldier, Mike Hoare, has died at the age of 100. Long ago, I knew a couple of people who had known him in Africa.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/worlds-best-known-mercenary-who-21421033
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Mike_Hoare
Of course, kneejerk “antifascists”, bien-pensant scribblers etc will denigrate someone of this sort, but Hoare was a hero who saved many people from torture and death during the Simba rebellion in the Congo (1964-65). Not only Europeans, but Africans too. Nuns etc. Read Congo Mercenary before you judge him harshly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Mike_Hoare#Simba_rebellion
The sort of adventurer and hero “Not Wanted On Voyage” in contemporary Britain, sadly.
Scotland and England
For myself, I am content to let the Scots leave the UK should they wish it, though in my view it is an unconvincing “independence” that would see Scotland dominated by the EU and international finance, by (presumably) NATO too, and with a population likely to be swamped by mass non-European immigration over time (though Scotland is at present over 95% white, which is probably why few Scots sympathize with English people who despair at their country becoming black/brown— “I’m All Right, Jack”…).
Any pull-out by Scotland would of course have considerable repercussions in terms of rump-UK politics. The 650 Westminster MPs would become 591 and, with boundary changes, perhaps only about 560. The Conservative Party would be dominant in the short-term, with the Scottish SNP and LibDem contingent no longer there.
Another day shuts down
Ian Robert Millard 