The big shopping mall and cinema complex just up the road from where I work was cleared yesterday evening due to a bomb scare.
I almost went there to do some shopping after work.
Really makes you think.
Some lad on Pat Kenny this morning saying that this could a suicide by cop more than a terrorist incident. I don’t which is worse if it is a suicide by cop.
He’s obviously watched one too many episodes of Blue Bloods
Reports of a mass shooting at a metro station in Lille
Reportedly not terrorism
Unbelievable. I was there just 9 months ago. It could have been me.
Six people have been arrested after a teenage asylum seeker was left fighting for his life in hospital by a gang in an attack being treated as a hate crime by police.
The boy was with two friends late on Friday night at a bus stop in Croydon when he was approached by a group of about eight people, who demanded to know where he was from. After replying that he was seeking asylum, the gang chased him and launched their attack.
The teenager, a Kurdish Iranian aged 17, was left lying on the ground unconscious after receiving repeated blows to the head. Scotland Yard said he suffered a fractured skull and blood clot on the brain and on Sunday was said to be in a serious but stable condition. The two other youths suffered minor injuries.
Scotland Yard on Sunday said four men and two women in their 20s were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and violent disorder late on Saturday at addresses in Croydon.
Investigating officer Kris Blamires, from Croydon CID, described the incident as a “brutal attack”.
“He has sustained serious head and facial injuries as a result of this attack, which included repeated blows to the head by a large group of attackers,” he said. “A number of people came to the aid of the victim as he lay unconscious and injured following the assault.”
Those arrested were a 24-year-old man, a 24-year-old woman, three 20-year-old men and a 20-year-old woman.
The attack prompted a wave of condemnation, with Conservative minister Gavin Barwell, Croydon Central’s MP, describing the attackers as “scum”. He said: “I think most people in Croydon will be as appalled as I am that what appears to have happened is a young man who came to this country seeking sanctuary has apparently been targeted because of his ethnic background. It’s an appalling crime and I hope the people responsible are caught quickly and receive the full force of British justice.”
He added that Croydon was a diverse community and generally had “very good relations between people of different backgrounds”.
The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, condemned the attack and suggested the Conservatives had failed to get to grips with hate crimes. “Sadly, this is not an isolated incident but part of a sustained increase in hate crimes that this Tory government is yet to offer any effective response to,” she said.
“With rightwing politicians across the world scapegoating migrants, refugees and others for their economic problems, we are seeing a deeply worrying rise in the politics of hate. We must make clear that there is no place for anti-foreigner myths, racism and hate in our society.”
Explosion in St. Petersburg Subway.
Mixed reports currently, possibly in three different locations.
The official Russian state news agency Breitbart, sorry, TASS, has stated at least 10 dead.
President Trump will not take this lying down.
Expect a tweetstorm presently.
At least two blasts seem certain. Devices filled with shrapnel. Putin doesn’t take these things lying down. The last time there were bomb attacks on Russia, Putin used them as part of the pretence to step up the war in Chechyna. There’s even a fair chance he planned those bombs himself according to Litvinenko and a few others.
Diane Abbott is a fat vile harridan, happy to try and make political capital off this awful thing. She is just about the most repulsive politician in the UK. That is really saying something.
Surely, by that rationale, the Tory minister who called the attackers “scum” is also trying to make political capital out of it?
She was using it as an anti govt propaganda tool though. A slight, but distinct difference. I find her loathsome so I may not be neutral.
She was entirely correct.
There is an element within the Tories that is only too happy to spread anti-immigrant sentiment. Even Ken Clarke, a pillar of the Tory party for decades, has called this out.
Now the Tories may be sort of a broad church in terms of this sort of thing, and clearly UKIP and the other fringe looney right groups are worse per capita for anti-immigrant speech, but only a fool would deny there is a pretty significant element within the Tories that either actively participates in such dog whistling, indulges it, or stands idly by while it goes on.
Anti-immigrant sentiment amounts to little more than hate speech, and hate speech has consequences. The fact that there are other worse groups in terms of hate speech does not excuse the Tories, especially as they are in government.
Today’s Daily Mail leads with the headline “Savages” about the perpetrators of the Croydon attack.
But the Daily Mail consistently engages in the sort of hate speech and sensationalist headlines, of which the Croydon attack is the logical follow on.
The Daily Mail is another right-wing institution that, at least publicly, seems entirely oblivious to the consequences of what it publishes.
The right in general seems to have a real blind spot about understanding the consequences of such hate speech, and obviously that’s not just in Britain - it’s a general thing with them across the world.
So you agree.
Please make clear who, or what, you’re saying I agree with.
That the fragrant Diane used the tragic beating of a boy for political capital.
Abbott is absolutely right in everything she said.
Not only have the Tories not offered any effective response to the increase in hate crimes, elements of the party are only too happy to create and nurture the climate in which such incidents happen.
They should be called out on this at every opportunity, and unapologetically so.
I note that both you and Chris Philp, a Tory MP for Croydon, offer the classic reflex right-wing response, that of accusing others of “politicising” the attack.
This is a well-worn nonsense right wing cliche used when the truth doesn’t suit, one used very commonly in the US.
These sort of attacks are inherently linked to politics, they are inherently political.
Anti-immigrant sentiment from right-wing politicians and right-wing media creates the climate in which they happen.
You’re the most cliche ridden poster on here, fill the left wing clicho bingo card at least once a day, some lack of self awareness accusing flatty of that. Hate speech, christ, you love that one. Any discussion of controlled immigration or immigrants in general is hate speech by your rational.
The attack on that kid was appalling, perpetrated most likely by absolute scum, as that Tory MP rightly states. Dianne Abbott is still a self serving twat.
Queue you’re a daily mail reader etc rebuttals. You use the term hate speech for stuff you dislike,thus devaluing the term. Everything you post is through your ideological prism, you were on here with as many lame jokes as possible when the muslim bloke mowed down people in London a couple of weeks ago. That attack didnt fit in what you should get outraged about so fine to joke about.
Repeat, those who perpetrated that attack on that kid are scum and should be locked up. Blaming it completely on any right wing media is bollox.