Saturday 30 November 2019

Agenda-pushing or a faux pas?


As discussed on the Open Thread, here's Evan Davis on last night's PM talking to the former Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service Sir Mark Rowley about the terrorist attack in London. Sir Mark had to correct Evan Davis:

Sir Mark Rowley: While the ideology here looks more Islamist - that looks most likely - we shouldn't forget the sort of significant right-wing that the intelligence services are dealing with. So a big challenge.
Evan Davis: Yeah, I was going to ask you that because, I mean, I think at one point we were hearing there was as much going on in anti-terror towards right-wing, far-right, as there was towards Islamists.
Sir Mark Rowley: I don't think that's quite accurate, Evan.
Evan Davis: OK.
Sir Mark Rowley: The bigger problem has always been in recent years Islamist. The challenge though is that the faster-growing part...
Evan Davis: OK. I think that's where I'm, yeah, getting...
Sir Mark Rowley: ...the faster-growing part is the right-wing, but it's still smaller. They're both significant issues to be wrestled with - one more home-grown, one driven by international factors - but they're big challenges for the police and security services.

8 comments:

  1. Here's another attempt by the BBC to create a false equivalence in the public's mind between far-right and RoP inspired terrorism. Remember the glee with which they were able to announce that the Finsbury Park 'van' attack was far-right terrorism.

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  2. An interesting thought experiment is when does Far Left become Far Right....I’m guessing there’s more than fair few Far Left and Environmental activists also causing problems.

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    1. Yes, the 'horseshoe' concept where far left and far right are closer together than either are with those at the centre.

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    2. If Islamic or Far Right extremists were attempting to bring London to a halt, as do Extinction Rebellion, they would be forcibly prevented from doing so. But because Extinction Rebellion is a Far Left organisation it has been indulged by the Police, by the Courts, by the Mayor of London and by the BBC. The fact that it is also a nihilistic death cult whose policies if implemented would result in the deaths of hundreds of millions across the planet within 10 years doesn't seem to matter to anyone.

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  3. Yep now it’s excepted that the Nazis were Far Right, and for some are just a few steps away from the Tories. Whereas a lot of the original Nazi Party principles were Socialist mixed with Nationalism - the clues in the translation of the name.

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    1. Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, was a leading member of the Italian Socialist Party and edited its journal Avanti before he founded the Fascist party. Hitler was probably less of a socialist in any meaningful sense (though he was happy to use the word for political purposes) but there was a strong socialist element in the N Party identified with the Strassers, Goebbels and Rohm.

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  4. I hadn't realised it was Mark Rowley being interviewed! He was a prime pedlar of the "equivalence" doctrine when in office and was always implying through ambiguous phrases there was an equal threat. No wonder Evan thought he could smuggle in that false equation! He must have been p'd off when Rowley of all people corrected him!!

    It's interesting to note that Rowley came up with another false equation during the interview based on "home grown" (Far Right) versus "international factors" (Islamic terrorism).

    A moment's thought is enough to dismantle this false equation. Much Islamic terrorism is home grown based on domestic cells, many formed around domestic Hate Preachers in Mosques and Islamic groups. Likewise many Far Right groups seek to make contact with similar groups in Europe and the USA.

    But of course, making the distinction as Rowley does is useful as a protection for the Islamic ideology. It suggests there is nothing wrong with the ideology in the UK - it's just foreign influence or international factors (which can of course encompass what Corbyn likes to think of as "unjust wars by the Capitalist West launched against Muslims in the Middle East")which is corrupting it and turning people to violence.

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