In the news

Usman Khan wasn't 'let out early'. He was released from custody at the time expected when his sentence was set and continued to serve his sentence outside with various restrictions.

Really?

https://news.sky.com/story/london-bridge-terror-attack-everything-we-know-about-terrorist-usman-khan-11874250

Inmates serve half of a fixed term sentence, which he had. Sky is the one deliberately misinterpreting this because it’s a better, unambiguous news line.

I just heard Mr Merritt's father on the 6 o'clock news saying "Jack would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences".

I'm impressed, a brave thing to say
Hopefully this response will provoke some thought before any knee-jerk reactions & "tough on crime" posturing.

Well, the CPS and probation service have been on their knees for years and reoffending rates are reflecting this. The intelligence services and police are also badly squeezed. All of the above have been warning that they are at breaking point. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that there might be a link.

There is an excellent, compassionate, thorough and considered explanation, by a barrister, of how Usman Khan came to be at liberty here. It also shows just how bare-faced Priti Patel and Boris Johnson's lies in blaming Labour are... https://thesecretbarrister.com/2019/11/30/10-thing-you-should-know-about-the-london-bridge-attacker-and-early-release/ It's a ten minute read but arguing the toss without reading it is liable to make anyone look a prat.

Anyone else just woken up?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/north-london-explosion-people-woken-21001177.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Seems to have been heard pretty much everywhere. Hoping it was sonic boom.

I was up. I thought I heard a noise just a few minutes ago - I'm in SE London.
It was a 'double bang' ka-boom! as opposed to boom! - so hopefully, as you say, a sonic boom.

Lots of tweets about two jets scrambled from Coningsby. Hopefully just early morning aerial escapades.

I heard it. Wow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50618956

"Typhoon aircraft from RAF Coningsby were scrambled this morning, as part of the UK's Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) procedures, after an aircraft lost communications in UK airspace," an RAF spokeswoman said.

"The aircraft was intercepted and its communications were subsequently re-established."

Do the muppets in that aircraft then have to pay for the cost of the jets being scrambled? Jet fuel ain't cheap.

Boris is pedalling this hard on Marr

Do the muppets in that aircraft then have to pay for the cost of the jets being scrambled? Jet fuel ain't cheap.

We've done this discussion before somewhere on here.

It counts towards the training hours that pilots will be required to do anyway, so there's no real extra cost for a rare incident like this.

Probably wasn't the pilots fault. Most probably a technical issue.

That’s a very very good piece.
The lie at the heart of political cries for a tough criminal justice system is that nobody will pay for it, and what budget there was has been cut to the very bare bones across the board...the Police in investigating crime, the CPS in prosecuting crime, the courts in judging and sentencing offenders and the prisons and probation service in dealing with them post conviction

Always more to the story:

https://twitter.com/mememtg/status/1200909576180322305

You'd think of course you probably be able to find dirt, but dang that's a massive fucking twist.

(starbuck can fuck right off tho).

The Secret Barrister's piece, calling out Boris Johnson's lies, is so good he has passed it off as his own expertise... https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1201076439250087936

If that hasn't sunk in, please read it again. This is the most underhand thing I have ever seen any British politician do. That's not a low bar.

I feel compelled to spell this out. The Prime Minister has…
1.Paused electioneering due to terrorism
2.Immediately used the attack to spread lies
3.Been comprehensively fisked for this by the expert legal opinion of @BarristerSecret
4.Passed off this expert barrister’s opinion as his own, editing to insert more lies.

This isn't a functioning democracy.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-accused-weapons-grade-21001907.amp?__twitter_impression=true

This is good news:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/01/angela-merkel-government-in-peril-leftwing-duo-elected-lead-spd

The SPD urgently needs to reinvent itself and become politically relevant again. The Grand Coalition in power at the moment is causing political stasis and disenchantment with politics that drives many to the extremist parties.

We'll see how far they manage to go, but it's hopeful at least.

I suspect it wouldn't be Johnson surfing the internet and copying it himself. More likely an adviser picked it up, did some slight editing and passed it to Johnson (or whoever runs his social media more likely).

I'm not sure if that matters all that much.

holy fuck imagine being this awful

https://i.imgur.com/50QMOWk.png

You're fully in the grip of political apathy. :)