Trump reaches out by attacking London’s mayor
Trump of course made everything worse by being an asshole on Twitter.
At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017
Not what a decent head of state is supposed to do.
Naturally people in the UK – once our closest ally, would you believe it?! – are not much pleased.
Donald Trump has sparked fury after hitting out at Sadiq Khan over his response to the London terror attack.
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Following the atrocity, Sadiq Khan said he was “grieving” for the victims and said the terrorists “would not win”.
But the US President slammed that response on Twitter, saying: “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’”
He caused confusion with a further tweet, saying: “Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!”
Tottenham MP David Lammy told him: “Stop commenting on what has happened in my city. Put your phone down.”
Funny coincidence, I told him the same thing early this morning when I read his stinking tweets.
“As an international politician, he should know better than taking cheap and unwarranted shots at the people actually on the ground,” a follower agreed.
He should know better and, even more basically, he should be a minimally decent enough human being not to take cheap and unwarranted shots at the people actually on the ground. He has a repulsive instinct for doing the nastiest thing possible in any given situation.
Mr Khan’s statement appeared to have been taken out of context by Mr Trump. The Mayor had said this morning: “Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days.
“There’s no reason to be alarmed.”
A spokesman for Mr Khan later branded Mr Trump’s comment “ill-informed” and said the president had deliberately taken out of context remarks made by the mayor to reassure people about the increased police presence in the wake of the attack.
He said: “The mayor is busy working with the police, emergency services and the Government to co-ordinate the response to this horrific and cowardly terrorist attack and provide leadership and reassurance to Londoners and visitors to our city.
“He has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police – including armed officers – on the streets.”
But our ugly squalid malevolent president has nothing better to do than insult the mayor of the city dealing with the attack.
We apologize to Sadiq Khan, to the people of London, to the world.
“Keep calm and carry on” meets “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout” (and tweet).
(Quoting my favourite child of Britsish WW2 vets.)
I’m only surprised that Trump didn’t announce that a very reliable source told him that Khan was behind the attacks, what with him being Muslim and all.
It’s because Khan was critical of Trump during the election campaign. Trump said he would remember it.
As someone who intends to be out in London again tonight, I certainly won’t be alarmed by the additional police presence. It makes another attack less likely. Sadly, they can’t keep that up indefinitely and it’s hard to predict when someone else might try something.
I think that Trump’s reference to a gun debate is intended to draw attention to the fact that you can kill lots of people without guns. Personally, I am very glad that guns are not easy to buy over here because if the attackers had had guns in there van, the death toll would have been a lot higher.
You might have seen the Dancing Police Officer who played ring-a-ring-a-roses with children at the #OneLoveManchester concert. He’s from my local town (somewhat north of Manchester) and an officer in our local police force which is otherwise notoriously awful. It was great that the guy danced with children and it’s a brilliant meme which deserves to have gone viral.
It’s a nice meme to spread but it’s something else, too. Our UK police increasingly tend to embrace the idea that they are not civilians. The news talks about “members of the public” responding to attacks as though our police officers are neither civilians nor members of the public.
The principle on which our police are based is policing with consent. The dancing policeman is in the spirit of that, but the horrible shit our PM is triumphantly doing for scraps of political capital to drag into a general election in a couple of days certainly is not.
@Myrhinne
We should definitely go about our business and play. We’re probably not going to be shot or blown up and if we’re frightened, we’ve lost. Have a brilliant time.
But it’s not as simple as that. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if rural areas were targeted next. Poorly organised and poorly funded terrorists could cause carnage in my village, which doesn’t have any police presence because the greatest crime so far was when someone kicked someone’s bike over five years ago and was then sick on the village hall door. People who say this was me need to get a life, obviously.
Attacking a place like this would be easy and would fit in with the narrative of soft targets peddled by the BBC as though it were meaningful. If I were waging a war against innocent people. it’s the sort of thing I’d do. It would show that kneejerk reactions won’t help.