Attack in London Today

Well as I was saying elsewhere in N Ireland they gave them all sorts of innocuous sounding unit names, Force Reconnaissance Group for example, to disguise the fact that they were specialist hit units. (ie killing squads).

Dont be too shocked. We didnt employ einsatz commando to murder all Catholics, just a few who we thought might be Catholic and IRA. But of course that never happened and I never wrote this.

Oh that kind of "surveillance". I'm up with it, I never miss an episode of "Spooks "

well I could smile at that too gf but to think that this is happening now in a british city makes my blood run alternately hot then very cold.

Understood.

Many years ago (1982) I was having a drink with a Special Branch bloke in The Tank (the basement bar at New Scotland Yard - now a gym I'm told) and he told me about the Markov case. He was genuinely shocked and disgusted that a foreign security service could conduct a cold-blooded hit like that. But as I said, it was quite some time ago I had that conversation, the Cold War still existed. Now of course the boundaries are totally blurred.

I remember the Markov case well. Botulism or was it ricin inside a platinum pellet and injected with an air pistol disguised as an umbrella. Real james Bond stuff.

And a gross infringement of UK sovereignty. But of course we only know about it because of some good detective work. How many "convenient" deaths are engineered today?

Call me cynical if you like but I have always believed that all governments of whatever political hue resort to whatever technical means they have at their disposal to overcome difficulties regardless of law or moral code, providing there is a good chance of getting away with it. Today there are very sophisticated means of doing away with someone, only balanced by equally sophisticated means of finding out about it.

Would you mind if I asked you, Steve, who would be on your list, if you were asked to start an investigation?

I had no one in particular in mind endymion. Was just making the general point that the line between good and bad, lawful and unlawful, moral and immoral etc becomes entirely blurred when one is acting "in the national interest", or convinced that one is so doing.

During the second world war a consignment of deuterium oxide (heavy water) was being transported across a Norwegian fjord. The Norwegian govt in exile in London had already given permission to sink the boat. British commandos did so, killing several Norwegians on board but sending the cargo to the bottom. That was a tough call for the Norwegians in London.

We are apparantly at war now against Islamist terrorism. What are we prepared to do to stop a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of suicide bombers?

Giles Brandreth. He'd have to go.

Mctag (welcome back btw...good hols?)

the question was whose death did I think suspicious

but if you want to know who I would like to see bumped off...er

well you made a good start there

Hols brill, ta.

Shane Warne?

and that other fella McGrath

best if we could arrange a little dispute between the two in Earls Court Wednesday night.

Malcolm Glazer?

Malcolm Glazer should be made to sit a live TV interview, so that he can explain the offside rule.

Prescott?

[[/URL][/IMG]

well they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but not your image above mcT

please have another go would like to all 150 images of the shack

that was quick

BRILLIANT looks a bit like a boat to me

Not many images on Shack.

Here's another

[/URL][/IMG]

yes definitely a boat. Could be a sailing boat with sails and string and things and oh my God is that you in the rigging?

was that immediately prior to keel hauling? What did you do? put 3 sugars in the captains tea?

That was Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy in the rigging.

Looks like grand fun.

And if there hadn't been that digression regarding grand fun, I would have put George Bush's name up there on the list.