Well, Well...

From the BBC to al-Jazeera
(not such a big jump)

"BBC news presenter Darren Jordon is to leave the corporation to join Arabic television station al-Jazeera."

"Jordon is to work on the station's forthcoming 24-hour English language news channel, al-Jazeera International."

Darren Jordon to leave BBC News

I wonder how many more people they'll poach from the BBC. I'm sure many BBC staff members would fit in perfectly at al-Jazeera.

Standards are slipping

The Britisj Broodcasting Corpration

What is it with the BBC lately. I'm seeing error after error on their news pages.

Is it just me?
Have I become more observant suddenly? I doubt it.

The question is; who the hell are they employing to make all these errors? They're making more mistakes than I could ever make. Is this evidence that standards in education are dropping and not even a BBC journalist can spell, punctuate correctly, or even choose the correct word to use these days?

Finding errors has now become a daily occurence for me.

Shocking, it is absolutely shocking.
(Shocking: some of my own punctiation may occasionally be that. But i'm not employed by the BBC)

This Is Interesting

Three nights of "unrest" in Windsor

Police patrol dairy after attack BBC News

When i clicked the link to read the story i was expecting to read about some minority or other causing bit of bother. The first line informs us that a dairy owned by a Muslim family had been petrol bombed. Oh, must be local racists having a go at muslims, I thought. It's in Windsor apparently. Not the first town you think of as a venue for a molotov cocktail party.

There were up to fifty "youths" involved in this so called "unrest". Three people have been arrested. The BBC informs us that it was the third night of unrest. I hadn't heard about the previous two nights, and by the size of the article it doesn't appear that they have bothered to write about it until now.

"Staff at the dairy told BBC News they have faced verbal abuse, their cars have been damaged and stones bricks and bottles thrown at the buildings."

As well as the Muslim owned dairy there's also an Islamic centre in the same complex. Whether this has any relevance to the story we do not yet know. I suspect it doesn't and It wouldn't surprise me if the journalist who wrote the article included that as a means to imply even further that Muslims have been targeted by white thugs.

There's no mention of a racist motive, though.
And the police are keeping tightlipped.

"Police officers said they cannot comment on the motive behind the unrest."

Something isn't right here!

This is one of those news stories that you think... something isn't right here, we're not getting a tenth of the story let alone half of it. Some dispute with the dairy is most likely behind it. The infomation (at present) is so sparse they might as well carry on like the previous two days and not bother reporting it at all. This looks to be yet another story that is written to create the impression that Muslins are all victims and the nasty white majority are evil racists.

It's just a gut feeling, but, I would judge that my first instinct (even before I read the page) is right and that "minorities" have been causing a bit of bother... again.
Berkshire is one of the counties which has seen a massive influx of immigrants and migrant workers in the last two years. Slough is a perfect example of an English town being "swamped" by immigrants. Coincidentally, part of Medina dairy is located in Slough.

I wonder if the dairy employs/employed cheap foreign labour?

My money is on migrant workers (or even muslims themselves) being behind the three nights of "unrest". We shall see... unless it all gets swept under the carpet. It's three quarters under the carpet as it is with the link to the story being so low in prominence.

Come on BBC (and the rest of the MSM), pull it out from under the carpet, Dysons weren't designed to go over speed bumps.

More nonsense from the Respect party

That mental, attention-seeking woman with terminal Stockholm syndrome has been mouthing off about last week’s anti-terrorism raid in London with some very sensible and constructive advice for Muslims.

The full article as it appeared on the BBC site shortly after publication.

An activist from the Respect Party has urged British Muslims in east London to stop co-operating with police. Yvonne Ridley, who became a Muslim after her kidnap by the Taliban in Afghanistan five years ago, has accused the police of being heavy-handed. She told BBC News British Muslims should "withdraw all support" for the Metropolitan Police. Her comments come in the wake of an anti-terror raid on a house in east London in which one man was shot.

Call to Muslims over police help

Name: Yvonne Ridley
Occupation: Useful Idiot

Robert Thompson Rumour

Laban Tall has an interesting post about a rumour about one of the killers of Jamie Bulger.

A man convicted last month of the attempted murder of his pregnant girlfriend and her three-year-old daughter in Ireland is rumoured to be Robert Thompson.

The crime took place in November 2004.

The news articles (here and here) say he was trying to get full time psychiatric treatment in August of that year, but his attempts were unsuccessful. He has claimed to be Robert Thompson. His claims to actually be Thompson have been written off due to the fact he has been described as a “fantasist”.

Walsh moved to Ireland in 2001. That was the same year that Thompson and Venables were released from prison.

After reading Laban’s post and following the links I came to the conclusion that it was probably just a rumour and nothing more. I’m personally not convinced by the photographic evidence. Others have said Walsh looks like Thompson, but I would say, you could probably find ten young men who could look like a grown up Bulger killer in any High Street. But I will say that, I could certainly believe that the photos could be of the same person.

Later I had an interesting thought about all this. I remembered the story in one of the Sunday papers about a year or two ago about Denise Bulger (now Denise Fergus) tracking down Robert Thompson after receiving an anonymous letter from a “wellwisher”. The date of that article’s publication was 28th November 2004. The same month that the two attempted murders happened. I’ve searched but I’m unable to find the exact date of the crime. I can’t help but wonder, if it is indeed Robert Thompson, could the date of the crime be in the last couple of days of November? He was clearly not in his right mind for a while before then, and this news coverage could well have pushed him over the edge.

Although I can’t believe that it is him. He may have been given a new identity and newspapers would get themselves into a little bit of bother should they reveal his name or location, but I can’t imagine those facts would be withheld in a scenario like this.

Killkenny People 10 May 2006 ~ 15-year sentence for would-be killer

Killkenny People 17 May 2006 ~ Walsh sought help months before attacking girlfriend

Trust me, I'm a copper

Apparently, the local community where the anti-terrorism raid took place last week is angry and is fast losing trust in the police.

"Trust between the Muslim community and police could be damaged in the wake of a terror raid in east London, a leading Muslim has warned."

You have to understand how the local community feels. Dozens of nasty policemen invade their community and walk straight through the door of a home of one of their neighbours without knocking first or even opening the door and then they arrest two people who must be innocent because they haven’t been charged four days later, and in the process of this event one person gets shot - by whomever. (Let’s forget for a moment that the police believed they were planning a chemical attack which could well have killed dozens or many more people) It’s grossly ill-mannered to smash through someone’s door at four o’clock in the morning. Whatever were they thinking of? The occupants may have been asleep. And what about the poor neighbours?

We appear to be living in odd times.
Were the police meant to send a letter to the house to announce their intention to pay a low-key visit next week?

Dear Sirs, I am writing to you to declare our intention to pay a friendly visit to your property early next month. We would like to visit your home a week next Friday to do a routine search which I regret to inform you may take a week or more. As this search may be rather disruptive to your daily lifestyle we would like to offer you living accommodation which will be free of charge for the duration of this routine and friendly search. If the 02nd of June isn’t a convenient date for you please contact our customer service helpline on the number printed above and our helpful staff will be more than happy to arrange for the search to take place on another date which will be more convenient for you” P.S. If your home should contain an item which resembles a vest or waistcoat; please can you leave it prominently displayed on the day of our friendly visit. Thank you for your assistance. Your’s sincerely Sir Ian Blair Your friendly local Metropolitan Police Chief

Even after 7/7 it appears that some people still think that community relations are more important than preventing terrorist attacks which could kill or main hundreds of innocent people.

It is only a matter of time until the next 7/7 attack.

Why are we appearing to make this event more likely to happen by giving a prominent platform for those who seem to want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong? This is not the time for the police to be battered into being even more politically correct. We aren’t dealing with petty thieves, joyriders, or people who park on double yellow lines. We are faced with the threat of an enemy willing to kill and injure scores of people and in the process, kill themselves.

This is not a game. In games opponents play by the same set of rules.

BBC News: Terror raid could ‘damage trust’

And so could 52 dead commuters.

The Telegraph

I must say i do like the Telegraph's redesigned website. It feels good on the eye.
I particularly like the font use in the main headline What is it? I need it!




I can see the Times site being redesigned soon. It now looks a bit stale in comparison.

Heathcliff the Hedgehog

And they call this "Policing"

The police say they are studying photographs of those who attended and that arrests, if necessary, will be made at the "most appropriate time" from the BBC

"Most appropriate time" could be translated as meaning "never", or, "we'll pick them up... after they've blown themselves into a hundred pieces on the underground."

I'm more angered by the reaction of the police and some politicians more than by the protesters and their vile placards.

What message are we sending out with this picture? Numerous placards covered with messages that are inciting murder, and praising terrorists, and the police simply walking alongside as if they are accompanying a protest by a handful of blue-haired old ladies from the local womens institute. Obviously they have been ordered to do anything in their powers NOT to arrest anybody. We wouldn't want to cause a very public scene, now would we?

from the Times
"People who tried to snatch away what they regarded as offending placards were held back by police. "

"what they regarded..."

I would have thought all law-abiding people would regard the placards inciting murder as being offensive.

What kind of sick age are we living in that the police are not doing their job, and then prevent members of the public from doing what they should be doing themselves?

The police should have arrested those who were commiting crimes whether it increased the risk of there being a full scale riot or not. The long term consequences of this kind of ultra-liberal policing will be far more negative than the odd potential violent confrontation. Would they have arrested a far right group with placards calling for the murder of muslims? Or would they hold back for the "most appropriate time" again? The most appropriate time to arrest a criminal is when a crime is taking place i would have thought. We are losing more than is gained with our softly softly approach to extremists. We must be a laughing stock in the eyes of extremists in this country and beyond.

Why doesn't that idiot Ian Blair go the whole way and give each copper a little white flag to stick into the top of their helmets.

Islam: A Peaceful & Tolerant Religion

13%, and going down

A YouGov poll for the Telegraph has been published today and it's not a pretty sight for the Lib Dems. They come out of it with a measly 13% support as opposed to Labour with 40% and the Tories with 39%. Worringly, (for those of us who sit on the Tory side of the fence) it could appear that 80% of the Lib Dem's losses have drifted in Labours direction. (Tories up 1% and Labour up 4%).
Most of the poll respondents will have made their choice before the Hughes story broke this week. Things are going from bad to worse for them. Next month we could be seeing support for the party fall into single figures. If only the successor to Kennedy had been chosen by the pointing of 61 fingers in Ming's direction with the words "he'll do!" exclaimed in unison by all, then [almost] all would be well now, and the skeletons wouldn't have come tumbling out of cupboards at every turn, and the reputation of two of the party's top MPs would have been left untarnished.