Woolwich – Dacre Sends In The Ranters

Nowhere is the concept of power without responsibility more clearly on display than when the why-oh-why brigade starts up in the aftermath of the kind of terrible event that happened last Wednesday in the south-east London suburb of Woolwich. And no part of the Fourth Estate is more accomplished in this endeavour than the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre.

What's f***ing wrong with frightening my readers, c***?!?

Thus the Mail has used the brutal killing of an off-duty soldier to kick the benefits system, the hated BBC, and then campaign for the law to be changed to suit its own agenda. That a member of the armed forces has just lost his life is, for Dacre’s attack doggies, a mere sideshow: now we have reached the point where there has to be blame apportioned and scapegoats sought.

“Is this country mad? Why is Anjem Choudary, whose poisonous teachings influenced the Woolwich killers, free to draw benefits and tour BBC studios spouting murderous hatred against Britain?” screams Andrew Malone. Well, I dunno about Andy, but what influenced the killers may include a whole raft of events, and the sensible course of action might just be to cool it for a while.

Indeed, the emerging story today concerns one of the two now detained in separate hospitals having been allegedly harassed by MI5, after being subjected to less than humane treatment in Kenya. This underscores the need not to leap to judgment, instead of ranting on about pantomime villains like Choudary, whom the Mail says is “Funded by benefits from the infidel taxpayers he so despises”.

See, benefits means Muslims who kill our soldiers! And the BBC is in on it! And Channel 4 as well! That Dacre despises both broadcasters, and wants his readers to do likewise, is of course not told. But the real buffoonery comes from a Mail regular, the preposterously righteous Simon Heffer, who without a hint of irony has pontificated “Why Drummer Rigby's killers should be charged with treason”.

This requires a very loose interpretation of the treason law – the killing is reinterpreted as an “act of holy war, or jihad. This would mean that they are Britons waging war on other Britons, and on the British state. It is, quite obviously, an act of treason”. This is weapons grade bullshit, inflating the status of the killers merely to fit the Hefferlump’s twisted logic (and Islam, of course, is not a country).

Then comes the flagrant dishonesty: “The death penalty for treason is in abeyance under the terms of the 1998 Human Rights Act, yet it can be reinstated ‘in time of war or of imminent threat of war’”. No it isn’t: this is a blatant pack of lies (the 1998 wording can be seen HERE). This is just a crude and cynical attempt to use events to promote hate-mongering and frighten the public.

And, of course, to keep them buying their papers. So no change there, then.