…mornin’ all…sorry about sunday but it turned out to be an unavoidable non-starter at short notice so there wasn’t much to be done about it…which it could be argued makes it the exact opposite of the “unrest” that’s been troubling the UK of late…now…that hasn’t gone the way of bangladesh

Why has Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled? [Guardian]

…but…if you try…you can sort of see how a fairly specific brand of dipshit would get it in their head that if they took the chip on their shoulder routine online they could get a few hundred fellow dipshits to fuck a few places up & set some shit alight & loot some shops & brick a cop or two…the papers would run with it & the pictures would look like a big deal…& it wouldn’t just be a mother at home with her kids who got terrified by the assholes tearing down her garden fence to use that & the firewood to attack other stuff…like the police…these are small-minded people…so…in their head there’s a straight line from that kind of thing not only *from* the deaths of small children by violence…which is allegedly their justification…but straight through some…either deliberately or in a self-spawning miracle of AI-enhanced algorithmic gifting to the people what they want…inaccurate claims about who did that…*to* trying to commit arson on a hotel housing migrants & asylum seekers…very much small children included…who would have burned to death if the numbskulled nimby brigades of incoherent intolerance had been successful in their efforts to post hoc ergo propter hoc retcon their way from reprehensible to revered

…when you think about it…in a bunch of ways a lamentable amount of it is nothing new…some of it is…but the political opportunism of it…not hardly…so…bit of context…rough & ready 14 years of the tories burning through PMs like they were banknotes on a night out with the bullingdon boys…a lot of shit is pretty fucked on the public services front & the bank account is looking gaunt AF…the replacements said they wouldn’t hike certain taxes but are commited to spending that implies they will have to at some point…the last lot having just recently used some semantics to “not raise taxes” while raising the tax take at the same time…which is a very tory way of doing that sort of thing…inflation & a rising cost of living has upped a few paychecks…but we thought we’d freeze the boundaries for the tax brackets at levels that were accurate-ish pre-pandemic so as luck would have it the number of people probably struggling with the increases in their cost of living who now get to be in a higher tax bracket & we’ve suddenly made less well-off than before they got that raise can comfort themselves with how we haven’t raised taxes like the labour party would…if you need us we’ll be over here patting ourselves on the back for how great we are are at this

…&…one of the things that they looked at in a similar light was “the prison estate”…so…early doors there was a fair bit of notice taken of how an ex-DPP…which is sort of but not exactly like being the AG…prime minister would handle inheriting prisons that were bursting at the overpopulated seams…& he appoinnted a KC & a guy who employs possibly more felons than any other business to get on that…& pretty swiftly announced that they were going to fast-track the release of some categories of prisoners…cue predictable coverage warning about flooding the population with precisely the sorts who wouldn’t qualify for early release…all pretty predictable but weatherable…not least while parliament isn’t in session…which is when this latest attack of the god-awfuls came calling…but…again with context…back when he was the DPP & some similar bouts of knuckle-headed narratives trying to spin heraldry out of hooliganism kicked off…he prosecuted a slew of them quick-smart & didn’t go light on the sentencing…so…haven’t seen it typed up this way…after the phrase “standing army” cropped up it didn’t get a look-in in the stampede…but per the radio…in the shape of a high-ranking member of the met…”4,000″ officers is a number pulled out of the air & signifying basically nothing…it’s business as usual…in which there are more than 4,000 officers with public order training nationwide & regional forces being supplemented with assistance from out of town happens literally everywhere from tiny hamlets to bleeding london on the regular…so it’s more a scheduling issue to make sure to spread it around & not hammer some poor bunch of bobbies with permanent riot-duty because they upset the person who sets the rota…& in a similar (if slightly sped up) vein

“We will make sure that anyone that is given a custodial sentence as a result of the riots and disorder, there will be a prison place waiting for them,” the justice minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

In response to the disorder, the government had introduced 567 additional prison places that were due to come forward at the end of the month, Alexander said.
[…]
“We are confident that prison spaces will be there so that people who are perpetrating this disgusting behaviour on our streets and in our communities it they’re given a custodial sentence they will be serving in jail,” Alexander said.

As disorder continued for a seventh day on Monday, Jemima Laing, a Labour councillor in Plymouth, described “a pretty grim” night in the port city in Devon after police officers were injured during “sustained violence”. Several officers sustained minor injuries and two members of the public were taken to hospital.

Laing said it was upsetting to see the city as a “stop on this racist tour that seems to be happening”. About 150 officers who were deployed to the city centre tried to keep rival demonstrations apart as masked anti-immigration protesters launched missiles at a counter-demonstration where people held signs that read: “No place for hate” and “Say no to Nazis.”

“I’m just so angry that so many people from outside our city felt it was OK to come here and cause such disruption and unrest,” Laing told the Today programme.

“Last night’s events were not reflective of us as a city,” said Laing, laying blame on those from beyond the city who came to “cause trouble”. “It’s really not what Plymouth’s about.”

Devon and Cornwall police said six arrests were made in Plymouth after bricks and fireworks were launched at officers.

…the fireworks are new…in the sense of getting mentioned, that is…only been inert “missiles” talked about before…but I can remember kids in manchester playing chicken with fireworks just for shits & giggles more decades ago than I care to mention…so…not “new” new…but arguably indicative of that tour including some escalation in terms of the show it’s putting on…even then, though, what’s escalation in plymouth is still on the light end of the disorder spectrum in belfast

In Belfast, social media footage showed officers attacked with missiles in the Donegall Road and Sandy Row areas. The violence occurred in the same area where two businesses were attacked on Saturday.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/06/police-officers-injured-in-plymouth-and-disorder-in-belfast-as-violence-spreads

…so…while there’s nothing particularly surprising or unpredictable about how starmer will respond to this sort of thing

In a statements on Friday and Sunday, Starmer has made it clear he wants the response to thuggery to be swift and decisive. He has called in the police to coordinate tactics, as well as delivering a message to Muslims and others frightened by the violence that this does not represent Britain. And he has named the forces he holds responsible – the far right exploiting a horrific tragedy to whip up disinformation and target migrants.

…even goes for most of his official opposition

There has also been little criticism of Starmer’s approach from the Conservatives, with former shadow home secretary David Davis saying: “Remember, the riots started with a lie, or three lies … I don’t have that many criticisms of the government or the police on this, to be honest.

“All what I would say is, perhaps they should have been faster to crush all that misinformation.”

…but…outside the likes of dianne abbott helpfully suggesting earnestly that recalling parliament would be the only way to duly reassure their constituents that the politicians had it all in hand by taking up the time of the people who we need to do things in talking about things…which she might very well earnestly believe…you know who really wants to get in the commons & bray about how they represent the voice of the common man…the man with everything in common with the EDL gobshite lounging about in cyprus being described as “on holiday” because even skipping the country after skipping a court appearance for a thing he returned to the jurisdiction expressly to re-offend on the relevant count somehow failed to grant the power of arrest & detaining more than temporarily to the constabulary…which is a right fucking headscratcher if you ask me…but…more of that anon, as the saying goes

However, a bigger difficulty for Starmer lies in the politics of the situation after the initial practical response, and how he reacts to Nigel Farage’s Reform party. Its politicians claimed over this weekend that the far right were not to blame for the riots, but discontent and unease about immigration.

Labour sources say the view is that it is counterproductive to give Farage and his crew the oxygen of too much direct criticism, when the focus should be on the policing and tackling the rioters.

However, others within the party are worried that Labour failing to challenge Farage more comprehensively head-on allows his anti-migrant insinuations to become part of mainstream political rhetoric, especially when he now has five MPs and received 4m votes at the election.

Hostile language about migrants has become increasingly mainstream in the last five years, fuelled by those such as Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, referring to migrants as an invasion, and Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair turned Reform MP, talking of wanting asylum seekers to “fuck off back to France” and claiming baselessly that the Labour mayor of London was controlled by Islamists.

Starmer has taken the view that he needed to explicitly condemn the far right for being behind the violence – making it clear that whatever the underlying motive, causing fear, damage and disorder are never acceptable. But there may come a time soon when he needs to more strongly confront the anti-migrant rhetoric that lies behind the violence as well, whether it comes from protesters or politicians.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/04/keir-starmer-decisive-on-mob-violence-but-faces-dilemma-over-reform

…&…maybe it’s true, even…I’d probably argue that the sort of debate that likely imagines replacing the current one would still be wide of where I’d line it up…but I have some funny ideas about the fundamental dishonesty of not including the overlapping bits of the venn diagram marked as “industry” & “climate-related” in ways that could conceivably make vast national & international infrastructure projects the proverbial “all hands on deck” kind of deal in a fashion that would hoover up more immigrants than even climate change with a funnel-feed of politically directed bit of human trafficking could throw at places…but that has more in common with speculative fiction than reality…so the guardian might be more useful for purposes of triangulation…anyway…in dog-whistle/fig-leaf combo terms…immigration => the more right you are the more you hate it & vice versa so if you think it’s a good thing you’re a communist traitor to your class & country & dangerously radical in your liberalism whereas if you want to burn foreign children in their beds while you bung bricks at policemen & throw the odd nazi salute then you’d be making your forefathers who fought in the great war prouder than the lot that got magna carta done

…how’s that for a balanced debate?

The Commons standards watchdog should hold Nigel Farage to account over his “dangerous comments” following the week’s violent disorder in the wake of the Southport murders, a Liverpool MP has said.

Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said Farage’s comments “cannot be left to fester” and should be examined by the parliamentary standards commissioner.

Farage has released two videos since three children were murdered in Southport last week. In the first, he questioned whether police were withholding information about who was responsible for the murders.

It came at a time when false information was circulating on social media that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible, which fuelled disorder at a mosque in Southport.

In a second video, Farage challenged Keir Starmer’s argument that the violent protests were the fault of the far right, saying it was “a reaction to fear, to discomfort, to unease that is out there shared by tens of millions of people”.

Lee Anderson, the Reform MP and former Tory deputy chair, made a similar argument, writing on X: “This problem has been caused by smug politicians who have refused to listen to the concerns of British people. It has festered and now it has boiled over. Parliament must listen, parliament must act but it must not blame the British people.” He also referred to the prime minister as “Keir Stalin” in a reference to the Russian dictator.

Senior politicians have held back from being too critical of Farage, although the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, said on Wednesday that there was “a level of responsibility … and it’s not to stoke up what conspiracy theories or what you think might have happened”.

However, several members of the public claim on social media to have submitted complaints about the Reform leader to the parliamentary standards commissioner, who can investigate any behaviour that brings parliament into disrepute.

[Kim] Johnson [Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside] said: “Nigel Farage’s dangerous comments cannot be left to fester. He is the voice of the EDL [English Defence League] in parliament, using his platform to spread fear and misinformation. Tensions are high and our politicians should be doing everything in our power to advocate for peace and unity, and support our communities standing resolutely against the racism and hatred displayed over the last few days. With so much at stake, we need urgent action from the Commons standards committee and the police to hold him to account.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/04/watchdog-should-investigate-farages-dangerous-comments-says-liverpool-mp

…so far…clear enough, I’d imagine

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/04/the-observer-view-on-the-riots-after-the-southport-killings-extremists-have-launched-an-assault-on-the-rule-of-law

…you get it…imagine the guys who hung out with the guy with the hammer who went full-cliché with the hammer & the broken windows during one of the post-george-floyd protests in hope of escalating the thing to rittenhouse proportions…it’s the chickenshit chickenhawk thing that’s the common thread connecting your farage-grade garbage person with your middle-name-yaxley yaking away from his perch poolside like a proper racist tourist…which totally isn’t like being an immigrant in the country whose hospitality he’s enjoying rather than his majesty’s…he hasn’t fled the country he’s so nationalisticly uber-proud of being from in contempt of court…he’s bravely gone on holiday while trying to remote in to “work” with an alibi in a different time zone

Inside Tommy Robinson’s £400-a-night Cyprus getaway during far-right riots across UK [Independent]

…because that’s how the game works now, right?

…well…sort of…there’s some mixed signals

After chairing an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday morning, the Prime Minister stressed that “the criminal law applies online as well as offline”.
[…]
The police, Home Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the National Crime Agency are working to tackle criminality online and to ensure people are prosecuted for online criminal activity, according to a read-out of the Westminster gathering.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters: “Anyone who stokes this violence, whether on the internet or in person, can be prosecuted and face prison.”

Those stoking violence online could face jail, Keir Starmer says [Independent]

“The internet cannot be a haven for those looking to sow division in our communities.”

🗣️Read the statement from Technology Secretary @peterkyle below: pic.twitter.com/s5fvC5DdrQ

— Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (@SciTechgovuk) August 5, 2024

Neil Basu, Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism, said he believed the attack should be treated as an act of terrorism as he condemned the rioters as “bullies and cowards”.

“Trying to set ablaze a building with people inside, whom you have made clear you detest, is an act of violence against people and property with a racial cause designed to intimidate a section of the public – be it Muslims or asylum seekers,” he said.

“Not only does it fit the definition of terrorism, it is terrorism. It’s nothing short of an attempt at a modern-day lynching and the people who did it should be facing life imprisonment, not a five-year sentence for violent disorder.”

…no argument from me against that

There are fears that unrest could continue to spread after a list of solicitors’ firms and advice agencies were shared as targets for gatherings in the coming days.

A message believed to have been widely shared on chat groups lists addresses for immigration law specialists and advice organisations across England and invites people to “mask up” if they go.

Tell Mama, a group monitoring Islamophobia in the UK, said it had alerted counter-terrorism police to the “far-right threats on Telegram that seek to target immigration solicitors and refugee services” in more than 30 locations across the country on Wednesday. The Labour MP Stella Creasy said she was looking into a potential target in her east London constituency.
[…]
The Law Society of England and Wales president, Nick Emmerson, condemned the violence that has already taken place, and said the organisation has “serious concerns about the safety and wellbeing of our members” after the list was shared giving “targets for further protest and violence this week”.

Basu, who was the head of counter-terrorism from 2018 to 2021, said the organisers of the protests should also face punishment.

“We overestimate the intelligence of thugs. They don’t think about the consequences of their actions until it’s too late, but jail a few and the others will run back under cover. They are bullies and cowards,” he said.

“Their criminal puppet masters, the organisers, those who encourage, have to be dealt with too. They are also bullies and cowards.”

Police believe that violence has been the primary aim of those organising the series of far-right led gatherings in the last week.

The chief constable of Essex police, BJ Harrington, who is the national lead for public order, said: “They are saying they are English patriots and protesting against immigration, but they are intent on thuggery and violence and they do not care about the communities they claim to care about.”
[…]
He said the groups “masquerade as protesters”, before adding: “What they say and do is quite to the contrary. They are attacking police and the fabric of communities. It’s not protest, it is thuggery.”

Harrington was a public order commander in the Metropolitan police when the 2011 riots erupted in London before spreading across England.

Asked if the violence this week was as serious as in 2011, Harrington said: “The implications of it, yes; we have communities across the country in fear and have seen property damage. The scale is not the same. Our response is faster and swifter.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/05/far-right-violence-should-be-treated-as-terrorism-says-former-police-chief

…so…if what yaxley yacks up from sunny cyprus is indiscernible from what nige belches forth from wherever he’s currently blighting…& those things fit the bill for being described as terrorism in the opinion of at least one person qualifed to have served as the head of dealing with terrorism for a whole united kingdom that lot appear to mostly want to divide…&…presumably after the mystery ??? “stage two”…”conquer”…or at least profit from…so…with the illegal-offline is illegal-online standard of equivalence & all…one seems forced to ask the question that has once more been rather explictly begged

Civil war is inevitable

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 4, 2024

…I mean

Protests reveal deep-rooted anger, but UK is not at boiling point [BBC]

…if the MAGA cap fits

UK examines foreign states’ role in sowing discord leading to riots [Reuters]

…elon’s a terrorist, right?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/05/no-10-criticises-elon-musk-post-x-riots

…asking for a friend