(no subject)

[mrph]

I'm feeling very cynical today.

I'd like to think that our security forces have done their work well in the last couple of days, stopping a serious plot that could have caused hundreds of deaths.

I look forward to seeing some of these people convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. Assuming that they're guilty, of course.

The catch is that we really don't have the best track record on this sort of thing. Most recently we've had the Forest Gate "cyanide bomb" fiasco.

We've had tanks at Heathrow. Nobody seems quite sure how this would have helped to stop plain-clothes bombers, but it made for some good headlines at the time.

We've had that very unfortunate incident with Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly shot dead.

We've also had the ricin poisoning plot - which did have a man who was genuinely intending to commit acts of terror, but didn't seem to have a terrorist conspiracy (or any ricin...)

Not the best record, really. It doesn't inspire confidence.

As for the political side of things, I'd just like to remind people that this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news".

Even if the security forces did their job perfectly yesterday - and I'd like to believe that they did - then someone behind a desk will be working out how to turn this to their political advantage, to hide bad news or silence opposition.

Comments

[zotz]

this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news"

One member of the government said it privately, and got slapped down straight away by her boss. She, and the boss who'd overruled her, both had to resign. Your summary's more than a little inaccurate. The tabloids may have covered it that way, but that doesn't make it the truth.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how justified all of this is. As you say, sadly we can't just assume it's all true. Or even that much of it's true.

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

She was slapped down an eventually had to resign not because the government disagreed with her approach but because her explicit endorsement of the strategy got into the public domain and was playing badly in the press. ACtually her approach was entirely consistent with that of the rest of the government and its PR machine - which of course is precisely why they felt they had to distance themselves from her.

[zotz]

She got slapped down when she originally said it. It wasn't consistent with government strategy - her suggestion was not acted on.

Yes, when it got out into the papers the private dressing-down became a firing. This doesn't mean that her bosses took kindly to it originally.