Be Excellent To Each Other

I agree, but ISIS will not sit down with anyone. This is the main problem.

ISIS isn't the problem. ISIS have no reach over here. The problem is young muslims feeling like outsiders in their own countries. These are the people we can help. Our people. Hate and violence only breed more hate and violence.

ISIS attacks breed more far right lunatics and more far right lunatics breed more radicalised Muslim youths.

23 year old man arrested in Morrisons car park in Chorlton in connection with the attack, about 90 mins ago. Mrs. W texted at 12.20 to say she could hear a lot of police car sirens and that the police helicopter was overhead in Chorlton.

Take That's Liverpool and Manchester gigs have been postponed.

Well right now Victoria Stn is closed, so god knows where Mrs JC Sr's friend will end up. She'll have to get her son to collect her I guess.

Already the news is comparing this to 7/7. This is far, far worse IMO. At least 7/7 did not deliberately target an event that the attacker/s knew full well it was going to be crammed to the hilt with children, young girls and teenagers.

About as sick and depraved as possible. Thing is this doesn't scare me, it just undermines any point they may have been trying to make and makes me feel disgusted and just more hate.

A positive post in all the depressing news this morning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40011977

Yeah cab drivers were all working for free taking people home.

Still sinking in tbh.

While it is awful for all involved in this tragedy, don't get sucked into the thinking that terrorism is getting worse in Europe. A graph from the last 45 years. Statistically speaking it's the safest we've been for a long time.

Terrorism isn't getting worse. Terrorism is terrorism. What's obviously changing is the dynamics, and who is being seen as possible targets.

Just like when I was 15 you fought with your fists and maybe, if you were a real asshole, used a stick or something. Now 15 year olds are stabbing one another to death. That's now the norm and you are abnormal if you don't carry a knife.

What's going to be the next easy target? infant schools? baby sitting centres?

It's not abnormal to not carry a knife? Where did you get that nonsense from?

I carry a knife!

And a fork and spoon. You never know.

(I also have a Leatherman with 3 inch blade in my work bag)

I meant kids in crappy parts of the city. Not every one. Should've pointed that out.

I'm not sure about that. That graph misses off the last couple of years and also presumably most of those terrorist murders through the 70s and 80s were the work of ETA and the IRA and weren't generally speaking so indiscriminately targeted at civilians and were geographically more confined. So although the chances of being killed by terrorists is still very small I'd have to say that statistically speaking most people in most places in Europe were probably safer back then.

You mean like the IRA bombing of the Manchester Arndale Centre 20 years ago.

Here's a more up to date graph.

Well yes, they did it early in the morning and gave warnings. It's still a fucking miracle that nobody was killed but if that had been their specific intent then the death toll would have been huge.

Always a silver lining.

Typically the IRA didn't seek to kill. Although Omaha, Stockport, enniskillen and Brighton have questions they would like to raise. That noted the potential victims were nearly always civilians with the notable exception of Brighton, so in response to the earlier comment of the targets changing, I'd argue they haven't, only they're now intended targets, rather than collateral damage.

When you say they didn't typically intend to kill I think you're thinking mostly of the mainland bombing campaign. I'm sure that most of the murders in those figures up there committed by the IRA took place in Ireland and were very much intentional. There were some accidents where other people got killed but it was really nothing like the indiscriminate terrorism of these latest lot of fucking nutters where the only goal is to kill as many innocent people as possible.

UK terror threat level been raised to critical. I think we should all just work from home tomorrow.

Well, hopefully it acts as a deterrent as much as anything. AFAIK there hasn't ever actually been an attack whilst the level was raised that high.

Oh look, Katie Hopkins is being a despicable scumbag as usual: Scumbag

Radio 1 has suspended their usual programming (they're just playing music with the DJs occasionally saying why in between).

The last time I remember them doing that was when Diana died.

I remember being extremely unnerved on the day of the London attacks in 2005 when Radio 4's 6 o'clock news fell off the air.

Why have they done that then? I mean I know there's a terror alert but the rest of the BBC seems pretty normal so why do Radio 1 need to do anything different?

Probably because their audience demographic is most closely aligned with the victims of the attack?

Doesn't do a great job of demonstrating how we're not going to let them win though, and stuff.

Fewer R1 DJ witterings seems like a win for us, though.

Absolute Radio did the same: "more music, less chat" it was put.

Dunno, I only listen to it for about fifteen minutes each morning so I can hear the news. I imagine it is because of the fact that the concert targeted was an artist who has heavy R1 rotation, though.

Grimshaw said that "It wouldn't feel right for them to be doing their normal stuff", so they're just having music for the day.

When the Queen dies they're going to cancel all comedy on the BBC, so I imagine that with events like this it's so that the DJ banter is not seen as being too light-hearted for the situation and also not having to be all sombre and mournful themselves when they have no training for it.

I can imagine it's also because a lot of DJ chatter is, by nature, upbeat and funny, and it's difficult to put that across and find the fine balance between emailing chipper and seeming insensitive.

With my cynical hat on I also imagine there's a fair amount of not wanting some DJ to put their foot in it live on air with an inappropriate comment.

I don't know if it was in reaction to the attack the other day (though I strongly suspect it was) but Russell pointed out to me that one of our colleagues (ex) had 'liked' Enoch Powell on Facebook yesterday

Well, quite. Like I said, it's a difficult fine line to tread, so if it's possible to avoid treading it then it's probably a wise move to do so.

And there was me expecting to see an Alan Partridge clip. Oh dear.

Same with one of my ex-colleagues. She'd shared a pic saying 'Mass immigration is a national security threat. Time so shut the door' (I then made the mistake of looking at the original comments on it which were vile), so I unfollowed her to stop stuff like that showing up in my feed. However, I've just clicked on her profile to get the text above and in the meantime she's shared another pic, but from that Enoch Powell page you're referring to. Ugh.

Unfriending is the way forward.