I would suggest that Blunkett is engaging in revisionist history here.

I don't doubt that there were some spineless police involved. No doubt all at a very senior level.

However, for Blunkett to now present himself as a frustrated would be saviour sounds like a load of codswallop to me.

If he had of insisted, it would have happened. Simple.

Posted by: Anthony at February 9, 2006 9:21 AM

The mind-set not only of the British police, but of many others in the British government whose duty it is to protect and instruct (or, by instructing, help to protect) those in Great Britain who pay their salaries and expect such protection, and such intelligent instruction. The police, who seem hell-bent on ncorporating Muslims into their ranks without considering the security consequences (if you were a Hindu or Jewish shopkeeper, and were being harassed, or knew something or suspected something about a certain Muslim group, or a mosque across the street, and reported it to the police, and you knew that Muslims were now in that police force, and being deliberately promoted to positions where they had access to all kinds of things, would you be inclined to go to the police? Suppose you were not that Hindu or Jewish shopkeeper, but someone possibly less of an obvious target -- oh, a professor of classical philology at Balliol, who had almost inadvertently started to monitor a Muslim student group that met in the Common Room of Holywell Manor, and happened to leave a pamphlet or two behind -- would you worry about going to the police in Oxford, worry that perhaps they would not act, or that some in the service might reveal your name to members of that group? And would you feel quite so certain of your safety as you might, in 1942, had you gone to the police with the name of some pro-Nazi group? These are not theoretical questions. They are real ones. In the middle of the Western world, millions of people who are not loyal to that world, who are hostile to that world and to its freedoms, its laws, customs, manners, now live, Many of them not shy about demonstrating their views, or threatening others, from lawsuits and demonstrations. They are not shy, for example, about wishing to overthrow, at one blow, the right of freedom of speech which took centures of slow development to achieve. There are those who seem willing to collaborate with them -- people such as Franco Frattini, who thinks that in response to Muslim hysteria and violence, that Europe should simply toss aside its current idea of what constitutes freedom of speech, and change it.

But would he think that, would others think they must think that, if the Muslim population within Europe were half what it is? Or a quarter? And how many of those Muslims within Europe are willing to swear allegiance to the laws of the Infidel nation-state, and mean it? That surely is a minimal demand to be imposed on all those wishing to enjoy the fantastic benefits of being allowed to live in the Western world, and enjoying the fruits of the very civilization which, paradoxically, some or perhaps many of those Muslim beneficiaries would wish to transform, not making the connection between Islam and the misrule, and lack of development, economic, social, and intellectual, of the coutnries which they left, but whose systems they not only continue to support, but appear to wish to impose on the free, non-Islamic countries, in which they have settled.

It is as if people fleeing the Nazis settled in England during World War II and tried to impose Nazi ideas, and to make common cause with those Nazis. It is as if people fleeing the regime of Joseph Stalin arrived in New York or Los Angeles or Washington and promptly tacked pictures of Papa Joe up on their walls, and menaced those who exhibited anything less than support for the Soviet Union, and Soviet Communism.

The disconnect is extraordinary. The fact that Muslims themselves do not make it, is no reason for Infidels not to make it.

Only connect.

Posted by: Hugh at February 9, 2006 10:14 AM

I think Muslims do make that connection, and that's why they want to destroy what they see in the West, because it reminds them of what they are. Rather like people who see a nice car they'll never be able to afford, and so they drag a key down the side of it out of sheer spite.

Posted by: Doctor Phibes at February 9, 2006 10:47 AM

Hamza's arrest took place days before he was to be extradited to the US on charges that may bring the death penalty. The question is not only one of why the Crown Prosecution Service took 7 years to arrest him but why that arrest only occurred with extradition imminent. Did the British police actually arrest Hamza as a precautionary move to prevent extradition and protect him from a more severe sentence?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by: Charles Martel at February 9, 2006 11:14 AM

That may well have been the reasoning behind his arrest at that time.

The BBC, who I do take with a pinch of salt, seemed to be suggesting that the reason for the lenient sentence (the maximum was life) was so that he could be extradited to the US the sooner.

But a lot has happened since his arrest. The murders of 7 July for a start, and the suggestion that that day was picked because it was expected to be the start of his trial, although that was actually adjourned.

Public opinion would quite happily have him extradited to the US, pdq.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at February 9, 2006 11:45 AM

Britain is too dimmified to act, they have taken political correctness to a higher level. The Mayor of London, Livingston who is a buddy of the Monster, Yusuf Al- Qaradawi has called for the killing of the cartoonists in Denmark, is invited to London as a moderate cleric. He is a sociopath living in Qatar. Tariq Ramadan another apologist for islam who is the grand son of the very fist terror organisation "the Muslim brother hood" is a honoured guest in England hosted by Blair as an advisor after 7/7.
England is doomed, if they do not act fast. The crown bestows honours ( Lord & Sir) to Muslims hoping to tame them, but they become more bold. For instance, what is the use of this rally & march called for this weekend in London? But to show their arrogance. Did they hold rallies & marches after 7/7 to show support for Britain?. No way. Muslims are a well entrenched 5th column who have pulled the wool over the eyes of the British public, there are enough dimmies in Britain to support and allow them to carry on their Jihad.
Boycott all their businesses and establishments and show solidarity to stop this Islamic takeover of Britain.

Posted by: faqi at February 9, 2006 3:04 PM

They must have been busy for those 7 years reading Dickens' "Bleak House".

Sic transit gloria Muslim.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 9, 2006 10:25 PM