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-- What is going on in England?

What is going on in England?

There has now been 3 separate terrorist attacks on the UK this year by lone wolf attackers. You just had the Manchester incident, and now another one on the London Bridge? What is going on? Is ISIS that desperate to show strength? How are the people in England holding up to this latest slew of violence?

The government has massively cut funding to police forces, which has resulted in something like 20,000 officers being taken out of service. Police no longer have the resources or numbers to track the hundreds of potential terror suspects, so they're starting to slip through.

The security forces stop several planned attacks every year. I believe they've stopped five this year apart from these three that got through. Keep cutting the funding and the ratio will slip in the wrong direction, however.

ISIS' supposed caliphate in the Middle East is also collapsing now, and lots of foreign jihadis are returning to their countries of origin, potentially motivated to carry out "lone wolf" attacks in the face of the failure in Iraq and Syria to establish an autonomous zone.

Aside from the visible presence of a few more armed police officers in city centres, life is carrying on as normal. Terrorism isn't exactly new in this country.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J The government has massively cut funding to police forces, which has resulted in something like 20,000 officers being taken out of service. Police no longer have the resources or numbers to track the hundreds of potential terror suspects, so they're starting to slip through.

Is it neoliberal amateur hour in the Uk right now? That's the one area where instead of cutting, Thatcher massively increased spending.

Or did they actually run out of other things to cut? That would be kind of amazing. The ideology of austerity going so far that the state is literally destroying it's own foundation. I don't think anyone on the left would have predicted that.

I'm honestly surprised that there aren't more small-scale urban terror attacks. It's so easy and there's little you can do to stop it if it's just a few guys that aren't known to the police already. Most of the guys are well known to the police/secret services and some still get through. The potential is pretty fucking scary, war experts have been talking about that type of urban combat being the future of war for a long time. It's already a daily reality in the middle east. Obviously, above all, the psychological damage is immense. You kill like twenty people across a few attacks, which is a joke statistically, and people will be afraid to leave their houses even though they're god knows how many times more likely to be run over by car or something.

Like Jack said, a dying mule always kicks the hardest - ISIS is desperate to show strength because it's losing forces both in Syria (courtesy of Russia and an isolationist US) and Iraq... so it's trying to make itself great again with the aid of groupies (aka lone wolves).

quote:

Originally posted by Woony Is it neoliberal amateur hour in the Uk right now? That's the one area where instead of cutting, Thatcher massively increased spending.

May is actually doing a u-turn on Thatcherite neoliberalism, so I'm afraid that's not a good basis for comparison. That's why The Economist, for instance, backing the Lib Dems rather than the Tories (which have gone full conservative, which is not so fond of free-market values as the left would you have you think) or Labour (which has lurched much further to the left under Jeremy Corbyn).

Theresa May, prime sinister and home secretary in the past 6 years. Cut 15% of MI5 in different departments, cut police jobs, almost 25.000. Refused budget for NHS computers security updates.

Was told by police 2 years ago that they would need army response in case of an emergency because they could not handle it anymore, she told them to stop scaremongering.

In the past 3 weeks, terrorists attacks and NHS hacked+blackmailed. While she sold weapons to the saudis that fund and support isis.

Then she wears anal beads around her neck.

Re: What is going on in England?

quote:

Originally posted by Zharen You just had the Manchester incident, and now another one on the London Bridge? What is going on? ... How are the people in England holding up to this latest slew of violence?

Well I live in London Bridge and we're doing quite well, thank you. The day after the attack people were outside having barbecues in parks and courtyards, the pubs were more busy than on a standard Sunday, people were going for runs, etc. Takes more than 3 desperate losers to terrify us.

Honestly the police response was quite good, in my opinion. The police preventative measures, not so much... We'll have to wait and see more details to really know who, if anyone, fucked up. It's always going to be impossible to prevent these things fully, but it would probably be good to increase police resources, especially anti-extremism programs... However there is a limit to what can be done in a free society. Even massively increasing police resources is not necessarily a great solution at the margins.

Hopefully a wise analysis of the situation will be concluded and better countermeasures can be taken, with appropriate and proportionate response and resources, but I do worry about that... Seems slightly optimistic.

Re: Re: What is going on in England?

quote:

Originally posted by Lews Well I live in London Bridge and we're doing quite well, thank you.

I wonder how many tourists you see outside are there simply because they thought it was the Tower Bridge.

I, for one, was quite underwhelmed by my mix up

Probably half the tourists in this neighbourhood are here for the wrong bridge, the other half are here for the market that got hit.

When people on the streets nearby ask me for directions to London Bridge I always ask if they want the tall, ornate 'postcard' bridge or the literal London Bridge; almost always they want Tower Bridge.

Should have figured you Brits would be so nonchalant about it.

I suppose those of us in the US still aren't that used to terrorist attacks, although some are growing accustomed to it, since the Boston marathon bombings. Still, there would be some shock around my state at least if 3 different terrorist attacks happened within 6 months of each other.

But hey, if it's not affecting your day to day, more power to you.

quote:

Originally posted by Zharen Should have figured you Brits would be so nonchalant about it. I suppose those of us in the US still aren't that used to terrorist attacks, although some are growing accustomed to it, since the Boston marathon bombings. Still, there would be some shock around my state at least if 3 different terrorist attacks happened within 6 months of each other. But hey, if it's not affecting your day to day, more power to you.

Yeah but we've grown accustom to non terrorists mass shooting here.

A rare occasion where IGK hits the nail on the head. Would you pull your (hypothetical) kids out of school the day after another mass shooting? Of course not. They're a periodic and shocking product of your society, but you recognise that they're still extremely unlikely to happen to you or anyone you know.

America is a far, far more dangerous society than the UK. The murder rate in the US is over five times higher than it is here. Terrorists would have to kill a hell of a lot of people before it got anywhere near as dangerous to leave your home here as in the United States.

And even in the US you're more likely to die in a transport accident or from an accidental drug overdose than you are from being shot. Being shot is actually only slightly more common than being hit by a car while crossing the street, which is most likely a bigger danger to the average person.

I'm American, actually, and I've been close by a number of worrying incidents now: car bombs in South Africa in my youth, a shooting at my American undergraduate school a few years back, and now this attack 400 metres from my flat. But I'm still pretty confident I'm going to die from liver failure or being hit by a cyclist, because I drink too much and those fuckers often don't follow the laws of the road.

The big headline deaths are both sad and shocking, but they're pretty damn unlikely to get you. This attack was certainly more affecting than most for me, since it was so close to home and I know people who were injured and almost died, but when I think about the people I know in life (my age) who have actually died? Preventable accidents, suicide, or killed in combat are the only actual causes.

Can't really let these things get to you or you'll just cower in your flat until you die from something else in the end, and that sounds really quite boring.

England, do you even Trump?

The world today

Yes it is very frightening indeed (just from seeing it on TV).


But I'm afraid we are now living through the consequences of the western world's decision to tell the developing world after WWII: "Leave us alone to do our own thing, and we'll let you do yours...".

Somebody prospered.
Somebody starved.

Someone has said "Enough is enough".
And in the 21st Century, we are only beginning to see the resentment of social exclusion and isolation our brainless world leaders can't seem to fix...

The best curry in the world is made in England. So there's that.

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