Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[STMO123]

Apparently, the incident on the M6 toll today was caused by a "fake electronic cigarette".

No dear, it was caused by a fake cigarette or an electronic cigarette.

[Richie London]

Did nobody think of asking him what he was doing. i don't think a terrorist would be openly makin a bomb on a coach .

[cleggy]

Looking at the lot kneeling on the motorway you may also think that they were up to no good

Better a suspicous member of the public than a carnage

Did nobody think of asking him what he was doing. i don't think a terrorist would be openly makin a bomb on a coach .

The guy did try to set his underwear alight, and the bloke with the exploding shoes tried to light them both on a plane.

[jimac]

Apparently, the incident on the M6 toll today was caused by a "fake electronic cigarette".

No dear, it was caused by a fake cigarette or an electronic cigarette.

Or a fake, electronic, cigarette or a fake (electronic) cigarette, or an electronic fake cigarette.  Isn't English wonderful!

[aaronjb]

Did nobody think of asking him what he was doing. i don't think a terrorist would be openly makin a bomb on a coach .

I was thinking that.. I mean - I know we've had similar incidents before (smoking backpacks that did, in fact, turn out to be bombs that didn't work right - e.g. during the 7/7 incidents) but.. I'm sure my first reaction would be to say "Er, 'scuse me, your bag's smoking.. might want to check through that!" and probably stare until they pulled out an electronic cigarette at which point I'd stop caring

I wonder which is the right course of action, really..

[the alarming man]

run in the opposite direction as fast as your legs will carry you.....

[aaronjb]

Thinking more about this, what was it that changed in the public psyche from our usual British 'getting on with it' attitude to the mass panic over things like smoke from an electronic cigarette?

If you look back through history at the number of bombings carried out by the IRA and others from the 1970s through to ~2001 there are an enormous number in London alone, let alone the rest of the UK, which killed and injured a lot of people. Heck, I grew up with parents in the forces in the 80s & 90s when we were very aware of real risks - but you never heard of incidents like this (at least I don't remember any)..

But after a relatively small number of bombings on our soil we are suddenly a nation of people of panic over the slights things and elicit enormous armed responses?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the 7/7, Glasgow and Exeter incidents weren't bad things, and a large number of people were killed and injured in them - but what was it that changed our attitudes so markedly?


I can only assume, really, that it's the impact of the modern media against how the media reported such terrorists incidents in the past..

[jimac]

It's very easy to dismiss this as a comic event, but I don't know what I might have done, or felt, if I had been in a similar situation.  I can imagine that the "perpetrator" might have been acting suspiciously, maybe a little nervous having a sly "smoke" on a bus furtively looking around in case anyone sees him.

But would I think it likely that a terrorist would want to bomb a lowly Megabus instead of a high profile train or plane? It might seem ludicrous - but think about it.  A bomb on a bus might kill 40 - 50 people, which is headline grabbing enough, but if it was coordinated with simultaneous events on the M6, the M1, the M4 and M25 it would seriously damage our transport infrastructure and could distract the emergency services long enough for the "real" event somewhere else.

The fact that someone reported it should be applauded, as should the reaction of the emergency services. On the information available at the time it could certainly have been real and therefore should have been taken seriously. If we mock it, and the reaction, it may well prevent others reporting something that could be really dangerous. Hell, who knows, the whole thing may have even been a test to see how the services did react.  I think we did rather well, actually.

[Dishevelled Den]

Ooh, I'm afraid that I would take a rather different view on such things as I beleive we are on the slippery slope.

Still, it's nice to see the forces of law and order pointing weapons at people rather than terrorists.

What with heavily armed police roaming the streets, heavy military equipment being stationed within the civilian environment, the ever watchful eye of 'security' cameras and the legions of state lackeys using the likes of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to back up their quest to know pretty everything about everybody we, as a country, have matured into being very much the 21st Century state.

I should say that we must prepare ourselves for more of this type of reaction by state officials as they continue, quite merrily and with utter efficiency, to do the terrorists job for them.

Don’t pay me no never mind however, I just an old ex-copper saddened to see that the suggestion of there being a police state now in existence seems to be no longer notional – but is, quite clearly, an unhappy reality.

[jimac]

Ooh, I'm afraid that I would take a rather different view on such things as I beleive we are on the slippery slope.

Still, it's nice to see the forces of law and order pointing weapons at people rather than terrorists.

What with heavily armed police roaming the streets, heavy military equipment being stationed within the civilian environment, the ever watchful eye of 'security' cameras and the legions of state lackeys using the likes of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to back up their quest to know pretty everything about everybody we, as a country, have matured into being very much the 21st Century state.

I should say that we must prepare ourselves for more of this type of reaction by state officials as they continue, quite merrily and with utter efficiency, to do the terrorists job for them.

Don’t pay me no never mind however, I just an old ex-copper saddened to see that the suggestion of there being a police state now in existence seems to be no longer notional – but is, quite clearly, an unhappy reality.

I think we're a long way from a police state.

Don't forget we are still fighting a war. It might not feel like a war, in the sense of those we endured against our old adversaries the Germans, but we are still up against an enemy. I'll bet that the police powers today, when faced against a clandestine terrorist threat, are not a lot different from those that existed during WWII when spies and so called fifth columnists were imagined to lurk everywhere. At least we don't have to carry identity cards like they did in the 1940's.

In 3 week's time we will be hosting the biggest international event in the world and I would be very, very surprised if there were not plans in the making by our enemies to, at the very least, make an unmistakable statement.  It is therefore not surprising that we (by that I mean our security organisations) take extraordinary steps to thwart any such attempts using whatever means we have at our disposal.

[Gaffers]

run in the opposite direction as fast as your legs will carry you.....

or jump 10 feet in the air and spread yourself over a large area

[Martian]

BBC standards again

I've worked with & for them, they only have "standards" when it really matters.

[Dishevelled Den]

I think we're a long way from a police state.

Don't forget we are still fighting a war. It might not feel like a war, in the sense of those we endured against our old adversaries the Germans, but we are still up against an enemy. I'll bet that the police powers today, when faced against a clandestine terrorist threat, are not a lot different from those that existed during WWII when spies and so called fifth columnists were imagined to lurk everywhere. At least we don't have to carry identity cards like they did in the 1940's.

In 3 week's time we will be hosting the biggest international event in the world and I would be very, very surprised if there were not plans in the making by our enemies to, at the very least, make an unmistakable statement.  It is therefore not surprising that we (by that I mean our security organisations) take extraordinary steps to thwart any such attempts using whatever means we have at our disposal.

 Aah, be careful what you wish for J or, indeed, what you begin to accept as that deemed necessary by the state to keep the streets safe from terrorist attack - it's never too long before ordinary citizens are caught up in such overt demonstrations of force.

Jean Charles de Menezes, Mark Saunders, Mark Duggan et al should have been a salutary warning to all of us that the use of deadly force by police officers armed and organised in this way can have far reaching consequences.

I've been in such units at various times during my service and am well acquainted of how a mind-set develops within the membership of them and believe me, this is not, in my view, a welcome development.