Just as you think the worst human Scotland ever has produced Alex Salmond cannot come out with a barb at England which manages to be both stupefyingly banal and skin-crawlingly vindictive at the same time than the last barb, he does. Although he does have a marginally better opinion of England than he does of Belgium, it seems.
In the common weeks there will be much relevant and apposite discussion of the shortcomings of the Belgium authorities. This will be best left to level heads such as David Patrikarakos and not a petulant man-child whose loathing – bordering on clinical psychopathy – of a majority of his countrymen is matched by only petty nationalist spite towards his larger and more influential neighbour.
As part of his umpteenth job on LBC the day after the attacks:
“Scotland would have better intelligence, incidentally, and the reason we have better intelligence is you’ve got contacts with your immigrant communities,” he said.
He contrasted what he described as the close relations north of the border with the difficulties faced by the Belgian intelligence services in the run-up to yesterday’s atrocity in Brussels.
“Your intelligence is only as good as the information you’re given – why did the Belgian security service have such difficulty? They’ve had terrorists in the last five, six months fleeing Paris living in a district of Brussels without the information of where they were and only in the last few days tried to grab them.
“That couldn’t happen in Glasgow, I don’t think it would happen in London incidentally – and congratulations to the security service in foiling the seven plots – but what we’ve got to understand is the radicalisation of our communities and the danger to intelligence is not getting the information and trust from your immigrant communities to allow the authorities to act.”
Recording here for people who can avoid boakin’.
Set aside the question of how an independent Scotland could afford to set-up a world class intelligence service so quickly from a planned budget of £200m not to mention a sheer lack of class which led Wellington to describe Napoleon as “not a gentleman”. At the very same time the media was reporting that an Imam at Glasgow Central Mosque was lamenting the execution in Pakistan of Mumtaz Qadri for the assassination of Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer.
Taseer had been a noted defender of minority rights and opponent of blasphemy laws under any circumstances, even if done under judicial oversight as Tahrir “don’t worry, churchmen, I only would execute a Christian within the law!” ul Qadri would approve.
The Imam has said his comments were taken out of context. Of course.
As if this were not enough to cement Salmond’s reputation as a reverse Cassandra with even less prescience than Simon Jenkins, an Ahmadi had been stabbed and kicked to death in Glasgow the previous evening.
Shopkeeper Asad Shah had taken to Facebook with “Good Friday and very Happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation”. Details of the precise identity who the savage responsible are sketchy but he has been confirmed as a Muslim from the Bradford area who drove an Uber taxi to Glasgow that evening.
The symbolism of a religious oddball but sincere man who preached a message of love and universal tolerance only to be killed in the most brutal way society at time can imagine by a hated-filled zealot on Good Friday is striking. It is unlikely that this happened unbidden following the goodwill message not least because Police have warned Shah’s family – and others in the approximately 400 strong Ahmadi population of Glasgow – not to discuss names and location in public.
Ahmadi-bashing is, of course, well developed in Britain.
This, however, appears to be the first murder in the country. A sister organization of the London-based ‘lawyers’ Katme Nabuwat posted “congratulations to all Muslims” on Facebook. I am told that the curly-wurly writing roughly translates as “according to reports, the follower of the flase prophet, Asad Shah has been killed”.
Douglas Murray offers a pessimistic view of self-appointed community leaders and anti-racists even to articulate the vocabulary necessary to distinguish between a barely literate rent-a-gob on Facebook (about whom no-one complaints but Police actively seek out) and preaching from a pulpit in defence of someone who considers it his religious duty to kill religious dissenters.
The motives for Shah’s murder were identified pretty quickly (potentially the savage responsible, like Mumtaz Qadri, did not seek to conceal himself himself) – even though it has been coyly referred to as “religiously motivated” – but not before appeals for calm and solidarity were put out. When it became clear, the Scottish Government Minister for External Affairs and International Development, Humza Yousaf said:
Accepting that he undoubtedly is concerned on a basic level – and forgiving the unfortunate use of the word “stamped” – although the savagery in evidence here can be compared with the likes of the Shankill Butchers, as Murray said blame is not equally distributed about sections of society. To employ a Blackadderism, some people would not see the point if it were standing in front of them, wearing a t-shirt saying “I am the point”.
Back to Salmond:
That couldn’t happen in Glasgow
Oh, fuck off.
