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For the first time in 10 years, the Prime Minister said the terror threat had been raised to the highest possible level, from severe to critical, meaning an attack is "expected imminently".
[...] Mrs May also announced that troops would replace police officers at set-piece events including sports venues and concerts.
It will be the first time since 2003 – when the Government reacted to a plot to bring down an airliner – that troops are deployed on the streets.
[...] It is the first time Britain has been on maximum terrorist alert since 2007, when a blazing car loaded with gas canisters was driven into Glasgow Airport.
Source: The Telegraph
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Soldiers Deployed in UK as Threat Level Raised to Critical
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:38PM (31 children)
What are the military going to do against civilian suicide bombers exactly?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:40PM (9 children)
Nothing, it's security theater. But it makes people feel like the government is "doing something".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:39PM (2 children)
TSA is security theater. European military guys with automatic weapons have already stopped a few assholes, as in Paris (Louvre, Champs Elysees, Airport).
If you're gonna pay them to train for a conventional war which isn't tomorrow, you might as well make them do something useful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:25PM (1 child)
- Commander Adama, Battlestar Galactica
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:21PM
Shouldn't we quote the show writer, not the character?
There's a standard US confusion in your reply, because US cops are always heavily armed when "serving", and so many are former or wannabe military.
Those European military guys perform no police duties whatsoever, outside of protecting people in the event of an immediate danger. They are not trained for policing, and do not want to get involved in any justify-your-actions paperwork, unless they absolutely have to put a stop to a situation to save lives.
More importantly, why do you believe the Italian military grunts would want to obey orders to treat their own people as the enemy? Europeans don't have that insane US relationship to their own government.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:47PM (2 children)
The tsa is intended to disrupt the planning phase of a terrorist attack. It serves an ulterior purpose of keeping the public scared and used to invasive authoritarianism.
Nobody has any interest in keeping the public safe feeling. Please remember that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:05PM (1 child)
The TSA is intended to disrupt people's expectation of liberty on multiple levels at once. It works very well.
FTFY
Furthermore, the interest is specifically in keeping the public nervous. That way they pay less attention to other issues, and the oligarchy/1% remains in control of the laws and regulations, and so can continue to drain them of everything that isn't actually nailed down. Sometimes those things, too.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:21PM
purpose of keeping the public scared
Not unlike like terrorism.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:10PM
"we have to do something, this is something, therefore we have to do this"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:23PM
Theatre it is. Call out the Army while simultaneously throwing the gates open wider at Heathrow for those poor refugees...
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:25AM
The summary sentence
should have said:
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:54PM (18 children)
Does plastic explosive go off if it is shot?? I'm sure the bombers will use the best explosives possible so they do not accidentally explode!
Perhaps they can't afford to rig a deadman switch and can be shot in the head?
Warning to fat people and those with baggy jackets... oh, and never wear a backpack again.
On a serious note, I wonder how gullible people in the UK are if they can't see how May is exploiting the situation... we'll probably have enough info to get an idea if it helped her or not. I can't imagine the USA being smart enough to delay elections; republicans want low voter turn out and democrats want high voter turn out and both would change the weather if they could. (republicans pray for rain etc. They bus in old cowards so weather doesn't impact them.)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:04PM
Bombers will use the explosives they can get their hands on. They are reckless and don't care for life.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:19PM (4 children)
Does plastic explosive go off if it is shot??
According to me knowledge, gained entirely from watching Hollywood movies and TV shows, the answer is no: it has to be electrically detonated, usually with a wristwatch.
Similarly, I know for a fact that a car will automatically explode any time it rolls over, or even if it goes over a cliff (as soon as all 4 wheels leave the ground, long before it hits the ground below). I also know that someone shot with a handgun will fly backwards about 20 feet.
On a serious note, I wonder how gullible people in the UK are if they can't see how May is exploiting the situation...
Well, they voted for Brexit, so they're obviously pretty damn gullible.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:32PM (1 child)
Any nation which opens its floodgates to Islamic scum deserves what it gets.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:25AM
Reactionary whacko Alex Jones, having just gotten his White House press credentials, showed what a class act he is by blaming the victims in Manchester. [google.com]
So, did you get your shtick from him or did he get his from you?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by gidds on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:44PM (1 child)
Only 37.5% of registered voters voted for Brexit.
I'm one of the 34.7% who voted against it.
(And 27.8% didn't bother to vote.)
Yes, there are a lot of pretty damn gullible people here (or, more charitably, people who have very different expectations from me as to likely outcomes), but there are plenty more who aren't. Unfortunately, due to the way it was set up — and the political reactions and manoeuvring since — we all have to suffer the results :-(
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:11PM
Yes, there are a lot of pretty damn gullible people here (or, more charitably, people who have very different expectations from me as to likely outcomes), but there are plenty more who aren't.
This is objectively wrong, proven by your own numbers. 37.5% voted for Brexit, and only 34.7% voted against it. That means there are more who are gullible. The 27.8% who didn't bother to vote can be added to the gullible list, or at least ignored since they didn't even bother to study the issue and cast a vote.
In short, there were a minority (barely over 1/3) of British voters who were opposed to Brexit.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:35PM (4 children)
In the U.S. we have this thing where politicians don't get to decide when to hold elections to benefit them the most; we have them on a set fucking schedule.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:25PM (2 children)
That's not entirely true, where I live the school board routinely has levy votes that are purposely scheduled on a day when most people will not show up. Of course the schools are closed during voting b/c a lot of schools are where you go to vote. If you work for the schools and like that levy money, it's pretty nice to have off that day.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:07PM (1 child)
Okay, on an individual community level there are probably exceptions. It would be news to me if anybody was doing it state-level and above.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:18PM
Yep. It's only local elections where they have any variance; state and national elections are always on Election Day in November. There sometimes are special elections at the state level, but they're rare.
From Wikipedia:
"Many state and local government offices are also elected on Election Day as a matter of convenience and cost saving, although a handful of states hold elections for state offices (such as governor) during odd-numbered "off years", or during other even-numbered "midterm years", and may hold special elections for offices that have become vacant."
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:35PM
The significant downside to set election dates is that electioneering starts months if not more than a year before the actual election day. I knew this would happen when Canada went the same way in 2009; the last federal election in 2015 was 11 weeks, far longer and more tiring in terms of wasted airwaves and brain matter than the previously normal 5 or so weeks, which was just short enough that it didn't dull or kill voter interest entirely. On the other hand, the longer period meant world events tipped public sentiment against the Conservatives who'd ruled for a decade.
Also: a set schedule doesn't mean the party in power can't use it to their benefit. They just hold off their key promises until the year of, or before, the election. This has worked for Ontario's provincial elections where the Liberals have maintained power since 2003, after passing a mandate for fixed election dates in 2005.
So, while I like some parts of set election dates, I still prefer the flexible election dates.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:49PM
Mythbusters tried it. Even high velocity rounds don't do anything.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:22PM (4 children)
Some of them are so stable, they can be shot, and otherwise abused, and they won't explode. The most (in)famous plastic explosive, C-4, is detonated with blasting caps. Others are only detonated with an electrical charge.
But, that's really all beside the point. Mankind has been making explosives for more than a thousand years. Some sulfur, some saltpeter, and some charcoal, are all you need to make an explosive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:57PM (2 children)
You don't even need that. Everything needed to make extremely powerful explosive devices is already in the vast majority of homes, and no one would bat an eye if you didn't have same, and went out and bought what is required.
The best thing about terrorists is that thinking clearly is beyond them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:14PM (1 child)
You probably went to school and studied Physics or Chemistry. In the UK that means you can be convicted of "having information likely to be of use to terrorists" - a description that probably also includes train time tables, and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.
Posting anonymously, as I studied both subjects, although I don't own a train time table - IME the trains don't keep to them anyway, and, even more worrying: to protect my liberty, I rely on Google's spelling correction.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:36PM
No. I quit school in my teens. Which isn't to say that I didn't study, of course. I've never stopped, and I'm in my 60s. I might know a thing or two by now.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:39PM
Flour, closed container, candle. Explosive. No high tech required. In some circumstances the combination can be catastrophic.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:00PM
Former combat engineer here:
You need heat and pressure to set it off if it is military grade. You could light it on fire and cook your dinner over it, just don't try to stomp the fire out.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:24PM
A clarification:
Military personnel are replacing those armed police who's duties are guarding buildings, such as Buckingham Palace for example. The armed police are then redeployed to city centre patrols or wherever. (For those in the USA: remember that a small proportion of UK police carry firearms.) Using armed military personnel directly to increase city centre patrols would be very unpopular, hence the shuffling of people around.
(BBC Radio also reported that extra armed police squads from outside Manchester had been transferred to the city.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:18PM
What they can do is learn from the past, understand why the Spanish Inquisition worked, and do it again.