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London Bridge attack


Anon2

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Sadly, Taxi, there isn't much anyone can do, it would seem.  Theirs is a philosophy of pure evil which is nothing to do with any kind of religion, and they prey on social outcasts and morons to get them to do their dirty work.  Blowing up little girls, stabbing young people in the neck and chest.....these are evil cowards, and we have to tell it like it is.  All we get is the same old platitudes after each evil event, but then nothing seems to change.  I know that the security services do their very best, and indeed have foiled many attacks, but it is time for this country to get tough.  Any of these young 'British' men go to Iraq, Syria or similar, don't let them back in.  That's it.  As far as I'm concerned, if you go to another country to train in how to blow up or kill your fellow citizens, that is treason and they should be put in jail immediately they land back here, or put on the next plane back to wherever they have come from, not let out to roam around the streets of the UK to do their evil deeds. Also, all the social media sites have to do a hell of a lot more to stop these 'people' being able to communicate so easily.  Monitoring services yesterday said that supporters of IS on their 'social messaging channels' were all cheering the London attacks.  How can they have access so easily?  

 

On the positive side, a huge thank you and kudos should go to the police, who killed these evil cowards within eight minutes, thus preventing an even worse situation.  Also to the ambulance drivers and others.  As if it is not hard enough to keep a large city safe under normal circumstances, they now have all this other stuff to deal with on top of it .  The horrors they must see, and some of them are very young, is just unthinkable (I am of course also thinking of Manchester here).  We owe them all our deepest gratitude.   

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Our Prime Minister in her infinite wisdom [?] has only recently signed a contract with the Saudis to provide them with about a billion pounds worth of weapons. The very country which holds these extremist views, and spends tens of millions building mosques up and down the UK and ensuring Imams with their own narrow, Wahhabi/ Salafist extremist viewpoint are put in place inside them, poisoning the minds of impressionable, disillusioned, angry young men. You couldn't make it up.

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Well the situation has got extraordinary complex now.

 

There were some young people way back in 2013 now who went to Syria not to fight Brits or because were against western values particularly but to support fellow Muslims in the fight against Assad and his regime which back then the British Gov supported.

The Gov have changed since of course.

 

The thing is you've got those factions mixed up with the Assad supporters and then ..Isis .....who just seem to be against everybody but themselves ....all thrown into the mix ....so very difficult to know who is going out to Syria to support who! 

Whether some who originally went out not for Jihad exactly but to fight for what they thought was a worthy cause at the time have now got taken over by Isis followers ...or other more radical type factions who knows. But it is very complex.

But I do know that not everyone fighting in Syria is anti western ....though they may feel angry with the Gov for allowing Assad to get away with so much.

And of course as Lisa points out there is a lot of hypocrisy where the Saudis are concerned.

Three boys who I taught from the ages of 8 -11 are now dead. Killed by sniper fire in Syria.

They were 18, 17 and 16 when they died......all so very sad and from my point of view wasteful.

But what can I say .....they were all lovely boys when I taught them ....they thought they were doing the right thing and were very annoyed when people started assuming everyone going out to Syria was an Isis supporter.

I personally disagree with this sort of thing and wish I could have stopped them going but could be comparable to people from UK who went out to fight in Spain in the thirties I suppose. 

 

 

 

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My heart goes out to all those who were killed or injured and to their families. My daughter and her friends left the area just ten minutes before the attack and another friend's daughter was one of those told to run and hide by the police. Luckily they were all safe but how easily things could have been different.

 

On Sunday, I caught part of the Ariana Grande Manchester benefit concert on the BBC and, looking at the happy, smiling children, some of them lifted onto their parents' shoulders so that they could see their idols, wondered how on earth the terrorists, some of them little more than children themselves, could commit these atrocities.

 

I have friends who are Syrian, warm, loving people who are shocked and appalled by the violence carried out in the name of religion. I have often, in the past, been invited to Damascus, which they described, at that time, as the most beautiful place on earth, much as those lucky enough to visit the Lebanon in times past would describe Beirut. The father of a friend of my son, a Libyan journalist, risked his life in returning home to raise our awareness of the horrors suffered by the people of Libya. It is, of course, no more correct to say that people from the Middle East are all IS supporters than it is to say that all Brexit voters are uneducated racists.

 

The Daily Mail is, of course, known for its sensationalism and today's comment by Richard Littlejohn that, since the politicians were too busy pussyfooting around to admit that we are at war, he would stand up and say it, is no exception. It does, however, make you think.

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There's a small part of me that doesn't want my son to go over to Manchester in September. But we've talked about it and he is determined to go over none the less. Which is absolutely the right attitude to have, of course. He could stay in our little village where nothing much ever happens and be hit by a bus. There are no certainties. I don't want him being afraid [ even if I am a little bit, I have to be honest].

 

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The attacker's car was found a few days ago about 150m from my son's uni flat, he was moaning that all the shops were cordoned off...  His area of Moss Side East looks pretty much like jihadi central casting, but our feeling is he's safer living right amongst them than in somewhere that they see as the 'decadent Crusader West'....

 

He's never had any trouble in Manchester but last night he got mugged by a bunch of Somalian youths right outside our flat in East London. They approached him and his friend offering drugs then demanded their phones and wallets. After a tussle one of them threatened to stab his friend, and when my son was diverted by that they took his phone and wallet out of his pocket and started asking for pin codes etc. He then decided the threat was a bluff as no actual knife appeared and gave a couple of them a hiding, at which point they ran off.  Police were excellent, taking them round in a car to look for the gang (and having a road chase with a different bunch of youths, which story he'll dine out on for some time).  I was particularly angry with Virgin Trains today, who despite him producing an email confirmation of the ticket order and the police crime reference paper, refused to reissue his stolen ticket and charged him £60 for a single back to Manchester.  So Virgin get to sell the same ticket twice and profit from the crime committed..

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10 hours ago, Quintus said:

The attacker's car was found a few days ago about 150m from my son's uni flat, he was moaning that all the shops were cordoned off...  His area of Moss Side East looks pretty much like jihadi central casting, but our feeling is he's safer living right amongst them than in somewhere that they see as the 'decadent Crusader West'....

 

He's never had any trouble in Manchester but last night he got mugged by a bunch of Somalian youths right outside our flat in East London. They approached him and his friend offering drugs then demanded their phones and wallets. After a tussle one of them threatened to stab his friend, and when my son was diverted by that they took his phone and wallet out of his pocket and started asking for pin codes etc. He then decided the threat was a bluff as no actual knife appeared and gave a couple of them a hiding, at which point they ran off.  Police were excellent, taking them round in a car to look for the gang (and having a road chase with a different bunch of youths, which story he'll dine out on for some time).  I was particularly angry with Virgin Trains today, who despite him producing an email confirmation of the ticket order and the police crime reference paper, refused to reissue his stolen ticket and charged him £60 for a single back to Manchester.  So Virgin get to sell the same ticket twice and profit from the crime committed..

OMG Quintus, how terrible. Thank God your son and his friend are alright. As for Virgin Trains they have done something despicable. You should contact a newspaper and tell them how he has been treated. They are always looking for stories and it will thoroughly show them up. Or contact the train company and tell them if he isn't issued with a full refund you are going to contact [ insert national newspaper of choice]. I wouldn't let them get away with it. Or perhaps notify one of the candidates looking to be elected on Thursday? I bet all of them will say once or if elected they will help.

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11 hours ago, Quintus said:

I was particularly angry with Virgin Trains today, who despite him producing an email confirmation of the ticket order and the police crime reference paper, refused to reissue his stolen ticket and charged him £60 for a single back to Manchester.  So Virgin get to sell the same ticket twice and profit from the crime committed..

 

It's likely the salesperson doesn't have the authority to deal with this sort of thing.  I would suggest contacting the Virgin Trains complaints or customer relations department and I'm sure it will get sorted.

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4 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

It's likely the salesperson doesn't have the authority to deal with this sort of thing.  I would suggest contacting the Virgin Trains complaints or customer relations department and I'm sure it will get sorted.

 

I had something of a Twitter war with Virgin Trains yesterday - they held firm that it is their policy never to refund or replace lost or stolen tickets.  All they will do is let someone else pay remotely so the victim can collect a ticket.  The person at the ticket desk my son dealt with was really quite offensive, telling him they couldn't know whether the ticket was actually in the wallet that was stolen..... I pointed out on Twitter that they actually profit extensively from this, as they sell the same ticket twice.

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Just what I was going to say Fiz. Why are they so suspicious that someone would go to all the trouble of getting a police reference no etc and not be genuine. It is a very cynical approach I must say.

 

 

I didn't really want to go on about the terrible attacks on London Bridge .....thinking about it too much could put those who have any choice off going up to London too much though I know we are all supposed to carry on as per usual etc but there is something which is really puzzling me on the news.

They announced that very unfortunately seven people were killed and about 48 people were injured...... but there still seem to be people saying people are missing. They must know by now the extent of who exactly has been caught up in this surely? 

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This attack seems particularly horrific to me as I was enjoying myself in many of the places on Friday afternoon before going to the ROH, Limehouse now, it gets worse! I noticed that Tower Bridge had railings between the pavement and road but I suppose they were there before because of all the tourists walking across.

 

 

 

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I don't know how long Tower Bridge has had those railings, but they've certainly been there a long time.

 

I can't say much about the attack without seeming to make it "about me", which clearly it wasn't when I wasn't in the vicinity at the time.  But that's a part of London I spend a lot of time in - I was at the hairdresser's round the corner a few hours beforehand, and singing Mass at St Magnus adjacent to the north side of the bridge a few hours afterwards (fortunately by Sunday morning, the cordon on Lower Thames Street was only excluding vehicle access, not pedestrians).  At the same time on some other Saturday nights I might well be found on a bus on the bridge, coming home from the Barbican or Hackney Empire.  The point I'm trying to make is, it really could happen anywhere...

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London Bridge is always packed with commuters during rush hours and at all times of day it's popular with tourists for the view it gives of Tower Bridge, they chose their target very cleverly.  The UK relies a lot on its tourist industry and as with the Westminster Bridge outrage a number of non British fatalities occurred,  Paris has seen a drop in tourist numbers and in Egypt and Tunisia the tourist industry has collapsed, it would be bad news if the tourists stop coming.

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