Watching the appalling news from London, the cynic in me wonders how long the Government will manage to stave off the irresistible urge to say, with no consideration of the evidence, “It wouldn’t have happened if we’d had ID cards.” Mercifully few fatalities reported so far, given the number of incidents and scale of the disruption.
Brighton station, where I was on Saturday, has been closed; Kings Cross, where I was on Sunday, has been evacuated.
The best sources for news at the moment:
- Flickr photo pool
- Guardian NewsBlog
- Sky News
- BBC News: Homepage, In Depth, At a glance and Reporters’ Log
Update: It looks like the death toll is going to be over forty. “Anger” and “sickness” are as close as I can come to describing how I feel at the moment. If ever there were a case for the death penalty – and there isn’t – it would be for crimes like this. Murdering civilians at random is the lowest and most cowardly crime. The police can’t track down the perpertrators soon enough.
I thought it. When I saw Charles Clarke waddling across Downing Street I expected him to talk about issuing bombs with identity cards so we’d be able to identify them as they explode.
Pissed off about this. Putting it mildly.
I’m sorry, but all I can manage is a mild sense of sadness. I may, therefore, be in shock.
I’m surprised, frankly, by how little terror there was on the ground. I, and about fifty others, stood on a platform at Clapham whilst the police, presumably responding to a suspicious package on the train that had just pulled in, ran past shouting anxiously. We calmly followed their directions, walking, not running, as they evacuated the platform.
Everywhere I went – walking from Battersea (where nothing was running) to Clapham (where some things were), moving around Clapham itself, on the train down to East Croydon (which was closed), everyone was just clamly getting on with it, despite alert after alert. Nobody panicked. There was disruption, but not much more than I’ve seen caused by signal failure and under-staffing in the past. I found myself guiding a few lost tourists around, but that’s par for the course too.
If they were hoping to debilitate London and strike fear into its inhabitants, whoever did this got nowhere.
Today’s events – Not right, just not right.
Ah I’ve found the word for it! Incomprehension!
Sadly good ol’ Charlie has said it would never happen if we’d had ID cards. Why do politicians become sanctimonious pricks in situations like this?
He seems to have said the opposite.
I would heartily disagree witht this being a case in hand for the death penalty.
Both of these, the ID Card and said penilty are quick fire solutions which may please the inner self but do the greatest harm to the community and the country as a whole.
Ultimatly, what better are we as a nation, santifying the murder of people, condemming the murderers before murdering them?
Many Regards
John
As I said in the post, there isn’t a case for the death penalty. And it’s hardly a deterrent to suicide bombers…