06 February 2006 Blog Home : February 2006 : Permalink
(A screech is the proper collective noun for blog posts, like a pride of lions, a murder of crows, an exaltation of larks, or a piteousness of doves. Other well-known collective nouns include: a pillage of Goths, a Depeche Mode of Goths, a bombast of senators, a keg of Kennedys, a garble of Bushes, a smear of Democrats, a revolt of Republicans, a loot of lobbyists, a buck of banks, a condescension of Clintons, a lout of Lotts, a misery of mullahs, and a process of Palestinians.)
Given the utter spinelessness of Her Majesty's Government along with the Metropolitan Police Comissioner and its Hate Crime unit, I believe that he forgot one collective noun - a coward of Blairs. One member of the coward, Anthony, has allowed his foreign secretary to make remarkably spineless comments and has otherwise remained silent with merely a spokesman providing the BBC with quotes:The behaviour of some Muslim protesters demonstrating in London over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad was "completely unacceptable", Downing Street has said.
...
A statement from the prime minister's office said police would have "our full support" in any actions they took.
The other member of the coward - Sir Ian - has said even less despite receiving over one hundred complaints about his police force's handling of the protest march. This is not because his police force were unwilling. As a source of the EU Referendum blog notes:Has Police Hate Crime Unit gone deaf?...
A demonstration where Muslim extremists carried banners inciting murder – whilst Metropolitan Police stood by and did nothing. In fact, despite the clear and blatant law breaking the hundreds of Metropolitan Police officers present were clearly under orders not to arrest anyone – despite feelings to the contrary by many a good copper on duty!
Last month I noted the homophobic hotwater that Sir Idiot Sacranie landed himself in, surely if the hate crimes unit can pull a man in for saying homosexuality is "harmful", then it should be pulling in some of these guys. As both the EU Referendum and Scott's Daily Ablution note, even the Grauniad is upset:"For centuries, English law has been crammed full of legal powers to arrest people who threaten violence or murder in public, or who go around terrifying ordinary people. On Friday, dozens of prima facie examples of such offences were committed during protests against Danish cartoons which offended Muslims by depicting the prophet Muhammad. One man was dressed in the garb of a suicide bomber, arguably an overt attempt to terrify of the kind that has been illegal in this country since at least the Statute of Northampton in the time of King Edward III, in the 14th century. Others carried placards demanding 'Massacre those who insult Islam', 'Butcher those who mock Islam', 'Europe you'll come crawling when Mujahideen come roaring', 'Britain you will pay: 7/7 on its way', several of which appear to breach the law dating from Victorian times that outlaws soliciting to murder. A toddler on the march was dressed in a hat that said: 'I love al-Qaida.' Many adults on political marches over the years have been convicted of breaches of the peace for much less than that."
Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said there would be "no sympathy" among Muslims for those who waved "incendiary" placards or banners.
"Those extremists who were inciting violence were trying to hijack genuine feelings amongst Muslims for a more violent agenda," he said.
Given the recent attempt at prosecution of Nick Griffin for calling Islam a "vicious wicked faith" the apparent double standard is striking and, as I suggested in my essay yesterday, plays right into the hands of racists like him. The coward of Blairs might like to think through the consequences of their inaction