Car Bomb in Central London

A car bomb has been found and destroyed in haymarket in the small hours of this morning.

The incident has prompted talk about Baghdad style tactics being used inside London.

The Guardian.

it will just give the government even more of an excuse to erode civil liberites/rights even further

I'm not totally convinced it's as simple as that.

give it another week until a new government initiative is put forward which will in someway mean more information collecting or people watching

I don't think that it's as simple as 'In light of last week's bombing, we're going to give you all I.D. cards and start monitoring your thoughts and put telescreens in your homes'.

I know that clumsy legistlation to try and help Governement agencies combat terrorism take a worryingly cavailleer attitude towards civil liberties, but I think you're over-simplifying the issue somewhat.

You're also pre-empting an issue that has yet to show it's significance in this particular case. I think more worrying is the attempted car-bombing that happened earlier.

+1

So nothing to do with deranged terrorists trying to kill a bunch of people at a nightclub?

Of course not. When in doubt blame our society.

Let's hope none of the civil liberties eroding cctv cams picked him up - he might get arrested and that would totally curtail his freedom to express his beliefs through the medium of explosions.

I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick there.

Glassmachine was responding to this comment
by rabidrabbit.

oh sorry

Or maybe MI5 have spent to much time reading the CIA's recently released "Family Jewels" and wanted in on the action.

how far would you let the government go (any government) to make sure you didn't have to be worried again?

At what time do we go, actually I know I might get blown to shit, but we need to keep some sense of freedom in our liveas

Does anyone else think the news coverage of this story has been excessive? It's an interesting story that deserves alot of coverage, but there has been pretty much no other news shown in Britain all day.

It's more relevant how we've just had a new cabinet put in place (not the kind from Ikea), and flooding has turned Sheffield into Atlantis, and yet it's 'Sound the bells of England! A car in Fleet Street hasn't exploded!'.

It would be different if this was significant threat, or if something had actually exploded, but I live in London and I don't know anyone who's the least bit worried.

Dude. You're preaching to the choir. And you're not listening, either.

Hmmm, a tad. What about two?

I think technically it's three incidents so far (Haymarket, Park Lane and Fleet Street).

Still, I just can't bring myself to be overly worried about this. Maybe I'm just not terrified enough of the Evildoers, but it was supposed to be a very amateurish operation that didn't even use real explosives. It sucks, and certainly should be reported, but I literally haven't managed to see any other news on television, which is irritating. Especially as there isn't even that much to report on it at this stage.

I think the significance for those living in London is pretty huge - the only difference if they had've gone off would be the added tragedy. The fact that someone intended to do this and got this far remains the most important thing. If this wasn't the first time it had happened then I'd see your point, but nah... this is pretty worrying.

Television news is always going to have a 'lead' story and I admit it can get annoying. That's why I read the Internet more. But being annoyed about there being too much coverage on this? I dunno, it's pretty darn significant. Be annoyed about Paris Hilton in the news, be annoyed about selective reporting of violent crimes to perpetuate negative stereotypes about certain areas and certain groups. This? No.

As a London dweller, er ... I'm not convinced.

I wouldn't mind if it was just a 'lead' story, but it's the only story.

Dude, what more do you want? Someone tried to blow up a car bomb outside of Tiger Tiger. That's pretty extreme. Are you not a little bit bothered that this shows that things like that are possible? Does it not strike you as a bit of a let-off that hundreds of clubbers weren't reduced to lumps of charred meat?

As someone who lives and will soon be working in central London - Well I'm not pissing my pants in terror. But I think it's quite an important development.

Are you saying that if the bombs on the 7th of July hadn't gone off, you wouldn't want to hear about it?

the IRA have already proved its possible as did July 7th and 21st I think thats part of the reason a lot of Londoners are a bit *shrug shoulders* about it, as its happened before and will probably happen again.

The opinion is, its not going to happen to me so why worry about it

If they hadn't gone off, and there was nothing the journalists could find to say about the story other than 'backpack didn't explode', I'd want to hear about it - but I'd like a bit of other news mixed in, not just the same thing being said over and over 24 hours a day without a single break.

Well I suppose that is quite a reasoned and thoughtful approach.

I suppose those things that don't directly affect me are pretty unimportant. I'm off to cancel my standing order to Oxfam now.

Are you watching BBC News 24?

But that isn't actually what I said.

On a related note, when does your contract with Fox News start?

Edit: Ah! You've now added quotes. This changes things.

And Sky News. Know you of any other good British news television channel? Apart from ITV, just because ... no.

Yeah, rabbitman fucked things up and it took ages to sort. I knew that would happen.

Still - accusing me of being a neo-con propaganda junkie? Are you sure?

Ugh IT-fucking-V. No, I was just suggesting that if you'd rather not hear the same story over and over again a carousel news service might be something to avoid. Just tune in at 7 for John Snow and his side kick Krishnan Guru-Murty and the awesome Channel 4 programme. Mmmm liberal bias..

Just his side kick's cool name is enough to make me tune in. Ah, I love double-barrelled names.
Double the barrel, double the fun.

In other news, I'm basically just rambling now. (not that different from normal then)