Dogwash

I wonder sometimes whether the mainstream media have really got the hang of this Web thingie. Our old friend the Lancashire Telegraph has an op-ed piece by that nice Jack Straw.

You know, the usual stuff: invading EDL thugs unwelcome, peace and love between vibrant communities, a symbolically beburqaed Yasmin Alibhai-Brown tripping down Blackburn's main drag (if you'll pardon the expression) hand-in-hand with Johann Hari who is wearing a pink Borat mankini, while the Rector and the Imam applaud politely and a happy united populace tucks into curried hotpot and halal Charleneburger as they wait patiently for the nasty EDL thugs to leave.

Boilerplate "move on, nothing to see here".

The reader comment thread offers a different slant, rather undermining Our Jack's propaganda effort,

egg banjo, padgate says...
6:42pm Thu 7 Apr 11

i was in blackburn on saturday afternoon just by chance and i saw the yellow buses go past taking the EDL people back to the train station. what i saw with my own eyes was locals clapping and cheering as the buses went past. this was my own experience cant speak for any others.

robinjevansbnp, darwen says...
7:55pm Thu 7 Apr 11

Firstly, the police requested that people do not 'counter demonstrate' as this may inflame matters..Yet we have Labour members,Unions and various pro muslim groups openly encouraging a counter demonstration. Not very helpful toward law and order?

Secondly, during the day and into the night, there were in fact several racist attacks upon white people undertaken by groups of muslim males who were patrolling the streets looking for trouble ..Any mention of that anywhere?

Third, In order to facilitate understanding between different communities, then ALL people should be included. Has any of these so called cohesion groups ever invited BNP or EDL to attend? The answer is blatantly obvious..The likes of Jack Straw and his ilk, the community cohesion peeps are bigoted hypocrites!

Atticman, Darwen says...
11:29am Sat 9 Apr 11

What about the 50 or so Asain youths that where congragated on Barbara Castle Way near Lookers Vauxhall that had to be dispursed by the police.

We only ever hear about the so called wrong doing white man, the media NEVER report these events evenly.

The problem is we should all get along but the the minority get treated as the majority you will always have a problem regardless of it being a race issue or religious.

There is always someone out there trying to look good out of something bad and that is you Jack Straw who managed to get his son off a drugs rap years back.

This town needs balance not EDL visiting or an MP taking the side of any group, you should be with out predjudice, the only reason you stand with the muslim is because they can be bothered to vote and you want their vote's.

(My emphasis.)

So da yoof weren't all down the masjid praying for peace and harmony, then. Well, I am shocked.



I also offer the following without comment. It is from the EDL forum (registration wall applies) and is not corroborated

Yesterday a group of 10 EDL supporters were out drinking in halifax town centre, one individual was wearing an EDL top, around 20 pakistanis appeared near mcdonalds in Halifax, a glass was thrown by the pakistanis at a white teenager near the union cross pub, a group of 10 EDL supporters chased the pakistanis back up town, where local people also confronted the pakistani gang, so again they have entered Halifax town with the intention of causing trouble, and again they have been ran out. The muslims have back then got some more back up and returned and 60 of them have attacked a pub thinking there was EDL members there when in fact it was just normal men women and children sat outside this pub, the police have turned up and no arrests were seen to be made. This is a revenge attack for the flash demo which was held in Halifax last and was front page news in the local rag.I wonder if this will be reported in the local rag this week.

The Halifax flesh demo referred to took place on 2 April and is summarised at the UKFD forum here,

Around 70 EDL suporters decided to hold a march in Halifax town centre, we assembled in a town centre pub with our EDL emblems, to begin with there was no real interest from the police, but a car full of local muslims pulled up and shouted abuse at us, one EDL supporter went over to the car to ask the people inside the car, why they had shouted abuse at us, the car drove off immediately, about 20 minutes later a police officer had attended the scene, and requested that our england flags should be taken down as they were offensive, so we obliged and removed the offensive items only to march through Halifax town centre with them, we decided to protest outside Halifax town hall, the police turned up, and attempted to facilitated the protest, members of the public cheered us, however the sentiment turned ugly when a gang of local muslims decided to shout abuse at us, which resulted in a confrontation with the police, and one supporter was arrested, the muslims ran away very fast.

And now over to our man standing beside a smouldering tank in Libya...