Who at the BBC thought it was a good idea to link a piece on Radio Four’s prestigious Today programme about the terrorist attack on New York ten years ago with the increase in Muslim population in Luton? What possible connection could there be, unless you seek to insinuate that there is a connection between the mainstream Islamic population and acts of violent terrorism?
They didn’t rely upon insinuation though: they had Tommy Robinson (Yaxley-Lennon) of the EDL to explain his views in the most soft-ball interview since Blue Peter profiled someone who looked after injured kittens.
Let us look at the reality of the EDL, from the Evening Standard:
Darrell Copeland, 44, charged a line of police and smashed Sergeant James Lloyd in the face as the officers struggled to control demonstrators from the far-Right group.
Copeland, who had been drinking, struggled violently as he was arrested, headbutting a window, threatening to do the same to police and shouting anti-Muslim abuse, City of Westminster magistrates’ court was told.
He was held in custody after Saturday’s protest until his court appearance, when he admitted assault. District Judge Daphne Wickham heard that Copeland, from Milton Keynes, had previously been jailed for racist abuse.
Victoria Forbes, prosecuting, said he had joined EDL demonstrators at Aldgate station, where they chanted: “Let’s go f**king mental,” as officers tried to control the crowd.
Or as John Humphries unhelpfully editorialised for the BBC:
They are not so much an English Defence league as an ‘Englishness’ Defence League”
On the same piece, a Muslim from Luton observed that in an uncertain world many people might turn to Islam. John Humphries observed:
This is really rather chilling”
