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Notes -
The man who murdered 3 girls and wounded countless others at a dance class in the UK, triggering the riots last summer has been jailed for 52 years.
The backstory, having been previously been withheld by government diktat (I wonder how many months the papers were collectively sitting on that mugshot, itching for the chance to print it) has now been published and we have learned some very interesting things, namely that:
Despite suggestions the contrary, he had been defacto known to the authorities and was referred to Prevent several times. For reference, Nigel Farage was reprimanded for hinting in the months after the incident. *
He had been caught with knives on 10 separate occasions.
He had previously been expelled by his school for violent behaviour, but later attempted to return to commit a rampage with a knife about 3 weeks before he would commit the atrocity described above. He was indirectly stopped by his father, who pleaded with the taxi not to take him to his destination. His father then seemingly took no action after this.
He had obtained the materials required to make ricin and terrorist literature from organisations from Al-Qaeda.
However, no terror related charges were passed against him. Upon conclusion of the trial, the immediate reaction from the government once this information has come out has been to redirect heat away from the government. Instead, the public is now to think of terrorists as "loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom" and to pass judgement against Amazon, so mentioned because he bought the knife used to commit the deed from Amazon.
I think this particular arc has come to its resolution, but the effects on the culture will be long lasting - the phrase "two tier" is now embedded in the public conscious, and the man in the street now has the perfect phrase to describe the observed worldview of the centre and left of centre (the Oppressed/Oppressor dichotomy) and their handling of disputes.
Co-incidentally, the man who called for "the throats of protestors to be slit", has had his trial delayed until later this year.
*Your definition of "known to the security services" may vary!
Some observations:
-The many failings prior to the murders took place under the Tory government
-Prevent is an anti-terror team focused on ideological violence not 'lone spree killing' type violence. However Starmer (who has been in office less than a year) has now changed its remit to include lone spree killing as well. Obviously this killer 'fell through the cracks' as they say (code for 'an overworked team didn't want to help because he was outside their remit') but why did the cracks exist? The previous, Tory government, in power throughout the entirety of the killer's young adult life and his encounters with authorities.
-He came from a Christian family.
-The 'terrorist' material he had in his possession was a CIA agent's commentary about Al Qaeda's methods
-I'm aware of no evidence at all he converted to Islam, but we do know that he was very interested in genocides through history, and in violence and revenge against his bullies.
So I am unsure exactly what your point is. Do you want to claim he was actually a Muslim extremist and Al Qaeda operative? Or that he acted partly or primarily in sympathy with Al Qaeda? Perhaps you could help me understand how any of this supports the two-tier characterisation.
He was the son of two recent african migrants to the UK, and thus absolutely falls into the oppressed side of the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy which the two tier accusation is describing. It is crudely (but correctly) recognised that if he was a white anglo the state would not have reacted in the way it did during the initial time after the killing and during the unrest.
The Tories are not meaningfully different from Labour when it comes to the overarching governance of Britain. Both defacto support growth hindering policies and the vast burdens on state spending. The only meaningful difference is that Labour is the natural home of those who believe in the current view on fairness/equality and the Tories might be the home of those who disagree, but are utterly incapable/uninterested of moving against it.
This is a pretty preposterous thing to say days after Labour just announced major reforms to judicial review in order to prevent infrastructure projects being delayed and blocked, something the Tories only ever made worse - see also their support just expressed for airport expansion, which prompted much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Tories, Greens etc. They need to go much further which these types of structural reform, but they now finally appear to be getting moving on the right track.
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