Nottingham: Stick to the Script

The recent toddler stabbing spree in Annecy, France, was accompanied by textbook media obfuscation. The BBC headline was a peach, airbrushing the assailant from the crime scene entirely: “France stabbing: Children attacked in Annecy park in stable condition.” I mention it only because the article itself was a lesson in how to shape the narrative. In terms of identification, “31-year-old Syrian, who had refugee status in Sweden” was as close as we were going to get. Instead of detail, we were force-fed nonsense:

Annecy prosecutor, Line Bonnet-Mathis, insisted that there “doesn’t seem to be any kind of terrorist motivation,” while the dubious assertion that the attacker was a Christian was seized upon gleefully:

In recent years, France has become accustomed to knife attacks, often carried out by solitary young men with backgrounds in petty crime and some Islamist connection. It is clear that this attack is of a different nature.

Best of all however, was the threat to politicians not to draw any conclusions in terms of immigration:

So far, most politicians are being careful not to leap to conclusions, but it is inevitable that the attack will feed into the debate on immigration.

Of course, it turned out that the knifeman (Abdelmasih Hanoun, in case you were wondering) had had his asylum application rejected by the Swedish authorities, on the grounds that he was a member of Syria’s Assad militia. Not a refugee then, not a Christian, and certainly not someone who should ever have been allowed anywhere near Europe’s children. Perhaps the authorities were hoping that by the time you noticed, the terrorist tour would have moved on to another city; and of course they were proved right.

Last week’s stop on the tour was Nottingham. At 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, 19-year-old Nottingham students Barnaby Webber and Grace Kumar were stabbed to death in the city centre. Minutes later, 65-year-old school caretaker, Ian Coates, was also fatally stabbed. Hijacking Coates’ van, the assailant proceeded to drive into three other victims, before being tasered by police. Two young lives snuffed out before they’d taken off, and one denied the well-earned comfort of retirement. To the left-wing lawyers so concerned about such matters, exactly where are their human rights?

One might argue that information about this case would be profoundly in the public interest, and that, after a similar rampage just days before, conclusions could be drawn. Thankfully the media was there to swiftly disabuse us of any such notion, especially inquiry as to the identity of the murderer: terrorism it seems is the one arena leftists are not keen to play identity politics in, nor are they calling for quotas.

Here are a few of the headlines:

• The Guardian: “Nottingham in shock after three die in early-morning attacks”
• BBC: “Nottingham: Students among three killed in knife and van attacks”
• The Mirror: “Nottingham attacks: Everything we know so far after van and stabbing horror killed three”

Notice anything about the killer? Not a mention, unless of course it is those pesky knives and vans at it again. No name was released until late Thursday, with most media outlets content with descriptions as fulsome as “the suspect,” “a 31-year-old man,” or for those excessively cautious, “the man.”

No, the media are sticking to the script. That means they have an extraordinary amount of work to do, to ensure no one stumbles across the more obvious explanation. The British Police are of course “seeking a motive,” and are “open-minded” (they stop short of Islamic terrorism, naturally). Many outlets are pushing the ‘mental health’ line, spearheaded by The Guardian: “Multiple sources say mental health of suspect, 31, is active line of investigation after deaths of three people.” And Suella Braverman has urged people “not to speculate.”

Unfortunately, thanks to social media, it soon became clear that the perpetrator was a black man with dreadlocks. This placed the media in an uncomfortable position. So the BBC, which is keen on rooting out disinformation these days, decided to come clean:

The 31-year-old suspect in custody is originally from West Africa but had been in the UK for many years, official sources have confirmed. He is not a British citizen but he had settled status, meaning he had permission to stay in the country for several years. He did not have a criminal record and was not known to the security services. It is also understood that the man has a history of mental health issues.

So, in the round a decent chap then.

Loathe as I’m sure the BBC are to report falsely, this may not be an accurate summary. According to GB News, the suspect is a 31-year-old West African migrant, with a history of violence, which suggests a criminal record:

Then there’s The Sun, who confirmed the attacker was known to MI5, because he “literally knocked on the door.” And if you’re inclined to believe former Sun editor, Kelvin McKenzie, “unconfirmed reports” suggest the murderer was a recent convert to Islam. What were the odds?

Even when it became clear that the knifeman was an African migrant, Nottingham Police took the drastic measure of tweeting a photograph with a white arm in handcuffs (a tweet subsequently deleted out of shame):

Where does all this absurdity stem from, and what does it mean? How can the media and the authorities claim to simultaneously know nothing, except they know what it isn’t? It isn’t always the way in these matters. When the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered back in 2016, The Guardian had the photograph, name, and white supremacist narrative of the killer up within hours. One reason for the anomaly could be pressure from the authorities, as the EU formerly advised the British press to “regulate coverage of terrorists who are Muslim.” The more prosaic explanation, is that the State and its media arm are taking us for fools.

The script is almost complete. All that is left now, is for the left-wing media to accuse the ‘far-right’ of exploiting the situation as they did in France with the murder of ‘Lola’ and again in Annecy; oh wait, that’s already happened too.

In Nottingham, the police have just been granted an extra 36 hours to question the suspect—that should give us all the chance to start singing “Don’t look back in anger,” before any anger has the bad taste to show itself.

But to anyone’s who’s not angry already, and content to stick to the script: you’re part of the problem.

This piece first appeared in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.

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