The Difficult Conversation has to start.

robel

Yep but he's being portrayed as "an ordinary member of the public."

I know how it works. Broadcasters want good telly. Dimbers said exactly that to us before QT kicked off. People sat passively in the audience is dull TV. So Dimbers wanted people engaging with each other and with the panel. However, it is sold to us as them being "ordinary members of the public." They aren't. Either this guy is someone going out of his way to appear or the media shows are constantly having him on to get interest. Be honest and stick a caption underneath saying he "a media whore" or whatever term you want to use because if he is being sold to us as an ordinary member of the Muslim community then people are going to think he is typical. He isn't.

Sonic67

How widespread is homophobic, Jew hating, anti Christian and anti Western attitudes in Islam? Do all mosques preach this or some of this, on a regular basis? Is it just restricted to certain mosques, hate preachers and elements of Islam or is it part and parcel of the religion?

Like with the Didsbury mosque where they condemn the terror attack with one hand but promote hate speech with the other....

If this isn't addressed and cut out, surely its just going to continue to enable attacks?

tapzilla2k

London Bridge terrorist appeared in ‘Jihadi Next Door’ documentary

"It turns out one of the London Bridge terrorists had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary called The Jihadis Next Door.

The killer, known as Abz, lived on King’s Road, Barking, and had been filmed praying behind an Islamic State flag in Regent’s Park.

How overstretched are Britain’s counter-terror officers that we can’t even keep tabs on extremists out in the open like this monster?"

                                                                https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1293717440726494       

SteakAndCake

I know there has been some questioning over if he was reported to the Authorities or not through the anti terror telephone hotline etc But that Channel 4 Documentary should have alerted the authorities to him and made them assess what threat level he posed at the time. It's looking more like the cuts made to the Police and Security Services and the focus on ever more surveillance powers has probably made us less safe. If Channel 4 News can discover extremists in the open on a shoe string budget it makes you wonder how effective current Government Policy on tackling Terrorism has been. I'm not knocking those in the police and security services who have to make tough judgement calls, but it seems like they are under resourced and undermanned.

Sonic67

Mass surveillance only gets you so far.  I'd imagine the UK is now drowning in data, of possible suspects, of suspicious activity reports.   Even with advanced AI to narrow that down, ultimately, somebody has to follow up and investigate.  Somebody has to gather hard evidence to justify an arrest and prosecution.  Somebody has to be on the streets to intercept and prevent adhoc unplanned, and undetected attacks.

That Theresa May's first instinct is to go after the internet is absurd.  Collecting more data, more intelligence isn't going to stop attacks.

Since 2000, there have been many anti-terrorism laws.

Terrorism Act 2000
Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
Terrorism Act 2006
Counter-Terrorism Act 2008
Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011
Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015
Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014
Investigatory Powers Act 2016

There have also been about 100 statutory instruments since 2000 with "Terrorism" in title alone:
Contained in this legislation are some of the widest, most general provisions in the history of criminal and also surveillance law.

It is difficult to imagine what more laws about terrorism there could be.

Since 2000, the UK has averaged a new terrorism statue every two years.

So many terrorism statutes since 2000 government has run out of names for them: Terrorism Act, Anti-Terrorism Act, Counter-Terrorism Act

At this point, it's hard to believe that more laws, or more attacks of citizen liberty will make us safer.

Sonic67

I would say it was more about us being too "politically correct" and allowing them "free speech" etc. Something the liberal left likes. Those on the right would have kicked them out or locked them up.

I wonder if it had been a bunch of right wing Nazi's who had put on some Hugo Boss designed uniforms, and waved an SS flag around whether they would have been ignored by the police for long? Why weren't all these locked up?

robel

I'm sure labour will be great at dealing with terrorists.

Ex-IRA killer claims Jeremy Corbyn has 'blood on his hands'

John McDonnell signed letter calling for MI5 and armed police to be disbanded

Jeremy Corbyn 'not happy' with shoot-to-kill policy - BBC News

Not to mention JC opposing every single piece of anti terror legislation.

Sonic67

Building walls......

Security barriers installed on London bridges after terror attacks

Greg Hook

Seems like police numbers is now a big deal. Current policy is to have some highly trained specialists on standby with a helicopter. They were there in eight minutes and did the job. We don't need thousands, from the look of it we probably just need three or four shifts of those specialists.

More police is comforting, good for low level intelligence but probably wouldn't be around when needed and would need to be funded. And not with Diane Abbott and her twelvty figures on how they will be costed.

We could have had more armed police on the streets. The police have always tended to be against that. They were in favour of more tazers and that seems to have happened.

The British police on armed routine patrol - BBC News

What happens if there had been two armed officers on London Bridge, car mounts kerb and runs them down, terrorists grab weapons from squashed, dying bobbies?

Pacifico

As far as terrorism is concerned, an extra 20,000 bobbies on the street won't make any bit of difference at all. It might even be an easy target for the nutters to attack unarmed police.

What we really need is thousands more behind the scenes and tracking these scum.

The response by the police on Saturday night was superb and needs to be commended. I can't imagine the chaos the police were met with and to take down the three terrorists so expertly and only hit one bystander shows just how well trained they are.

If this had been another city though, the response may have been a lot slower and the death toll a lot higher.