Monthly Archives: February 2009

Worcester/ Gaza

Worcester and Hamas are twins!

(Well, Worcester and Gaza.)

Labour councillor Alan Amos, who first suggested the twinning, said:
‘Like many I have watched the plight of the people of Gaza, seeing them get bombed and bombed by Israelis with advanced military weapons.”
See! See what you’ve encouraged BBC? Not sure what the purpose of twinning is, but in this case it seems to be a political statement. Has common sense departed?

• When David Mills, somewhat-estranged husband of Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison by an Italian court, what was the headline those fearless BBC newshounds with their keen nose for a story came up with? Er… “UK lawyer guilty in bribery case”. Bet that one pulled in the punters.
• Freeborn John is thinking of starting a list of awful things caused by Conservatism. His first entry was provided by what the BBC calls the “conservative views” of one Abdurraheem Green. Funnily enough, the preacher himself describes his own views as “radical” rather than conservative:
  

  Despite these conservative views the Metropolitan Police has sought Abdurraheem Green’s advice recently.

  And the preacher himself insists that in spite of his conservative views about life in Britain he is “part of the solution” to extremism because young people listen to him.

  “I surely have said some pretty radical things and maybe even written some radical things in the past,” he told Panorama. “But one thing I have been very consistent on is terrorism, participating in terrorist activities, violent revolution – is not something that I have ever thought was part of the religion of Islam.”

  Some senior police officers argue it is vital to work with radicals because they have credibility amongst young British Muslims.

  But some moderate scholars warn this is a dangerous road.

  Sheikh Musa Admani, imam at London Metropolitan University, says if advice is sought from the radicals, or if they are funded with public money, then “Muslims are going to endorse them as a whole and so there’s the danger”.

  All emphases added. It is not clear to me whether Sheik Musa Admani actually used the term radical himself, but the sentence about senior police officers is certainly the wording of the BBC writer. How odd that he or she uses the antithetical terms “conservative” and “radical” almost interchangeably.