What Mark Longhurst and Sky News didn't realise about Pulse attack

Last night during the Sky News paper review at 10:30 (it wasn't repeated at 11:30) Owen Jones, who is someone I admittedly don't always agree with tried to make the point that the attack on the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando was a direct homophobic attack. In a heated exchange in which Mark Longhurst the host and Julia Hartley-Brewer tried to down play the homophobic element of the attack Longhurst said "you don't have ownership of this horror cause you're gay."

I for one, and reading social media late last night, must of the LGBT+ community were outraged by such a reaction. We saw that comment for what it was a white, straight, cis-gendered, male not understanding that an attack on a minority grouping is not merely an attack on freedom, or an attack on humans having fun. This WAS and attack on the LGBT+ community. It was the realisation of many in the LGBT+ communities' worse fears.

If ISIS are throwing people some as young as nine off buildings in the areas they control for believing them to be gay, and they are carrying out attacks in the west, who might they attack here? Well of course one of the worse fears is that someone would claim to attack a gay venue or event in the name of IS. This is what happened in the early hours of Sunday morning and it is now the worse mass shooting in American history. So yeah the LGBT+ community can see that Owen Jones was right this was an attack on LGBT+ people. It was the realisation of our worst nightmare write large of the situation in our world today.

Julia Hartley-Brewer dismissed the attacked as "mad and bad" or as a "lunatic" bit for whatever reason he drove 90 miles and had premeditated to carry out this atrocity. The use of such words do not reflect what happened. This was someone with a seriously different world view to the established liberal, western mentality, even more so that the small c conservative mentality. But there are other people with a similar mind set out there who may well be planning something similar: a similar act to instil terror in the LGBT+ individuals.

In other words an Act of Terrorism against the LGBT+ communities.

Yet Sky News chose to mock the use of those words from someone who identifies as a gay man, someone in tune with the fear that is flowing out there amongst LGBT+ viewers. They negated the sense of terror that many LGBT+ people had heightened as a result of this attack, the mocked it in a way which is in itself homophobic in nature by ignoring the real concerns of all those individuals and merely seeing this in their own eyes.

It is therefore not surprising that I see that the segment which even Sky had deemed that they could not repeat has gone viral for all the wrong reasons.

 

Two Fatal shootings in Northern Ireland

Yesterday after the body of a man was found in a lake in Alexandra Park in North Belfast. He was reported missing on Tuesday. But although he body was found in the lake it was not a drowning, the Police Service of Northern Ireland have reported that the victim was shot.

The group that calls itself 'the IRA' a new dissident group formed in 2012 have claimed responsibility for this murder.

This morning there was another fatal shooting this time in the heart of Northern Ireland's second city in the Shipquay Street area of Londonderry. Shipquay Street is one of the four streets that lead to the Diamond in the heart of the walled city centre. It was reported to police just before 11 o'clock and so parts of the centre of Derry have been cordoned off to deal with this incident.

The recent escalation of bomb threats causing disturbances and now these two fatal shootings, one if which has been claimed by a terrorist organisation is a step back into the past that the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland do not want to take. Both these shootings appear to have taken place in shared spaces which the general public frequent and anyone could have be caught up in the incidents.

Times have changed and Northern Ireland is benefiting from the peace that it has experienced from sides working together over the last 15 years. Now is not the time to return to a violent, insecure and unpredictable past.

Tanker og bønner for Norge - Thoughts and Prayers for Norway

Jeg beklager for mine norske dette har vært oversatt via Google translate. Men på denne vanskelige tiden føler jeg at jeg trenger å snakke med venner i Norge og andre i deres eget språk, så vel som å la mine engelsktalende lesere kjenner mine tanker.

I apologise for my Norwegian this has been translated through Google translate. But at this difficult time I feel I need to speak to friends in Norway and others in their own language, as well as letting my English speaking readers know my thoughts.

Jeg prøver å forstå hva som har foregått i Norge i går. En bilbombe jeg kan forstå, jeg er fra Nord-Irland, er skyting døde på 80 unge mennesker på et politisk camp noe jeg prøver å få hodet mitt rundt: selv om jeg sannsynligvis aldri vil, og sannsynligvis ikke kan komme nær forståelse.

I'm trying to comprehend what has gone on in Norway yesterday. A car bomb I can comprehend, I am from Northern Ireland, the shooting dead of 80 young people at a political camp is something I am trying to get my head around: though I probably never will, and probably cannot get close to understanding

 Den eneste måten jeg kan selv forsøke å tenke på virkningen er å tenke på alle de politisk aktive medlemmer dersom Liberal Youth jeg vet og tenker at kanskje så mye som én av fire av dem ble utryddet i en forferdelig ettermiddag på Aktiver. Men selv det er noe som er vanskelig å ta i.

The only way I can even attempt to think of the impact is to think of all the politically active members if Liberal Youth I know and thinking that maybe as much as one in four of them were wiped out in one horrendous afternoon at Activate. But even that is something that is hard to take in. 

Eller kanskje en av sommerens kampanjene jeg har vært på, tenker at et stort antall mennesker på disse lagene var å nyte en ettermiddag i solen og deretter en stor andel av dem blir plutselig visket ut.

 Or maybe one of the summer campaigns I have been on, thinking that a large number of the people on those teams were enjoying an afternoon in the sun and then a large proportion of them being suddenly wiped out.

Jeg skriver dette som jeg lytter til den norske statsminister Jens Stoltenberg gi en andre pressekonferanse denne morgenen er opprivende. Han sier at noen av de nær ham var ofre i bombingen, og at noen av ungdommene på øya var også kjent for ham. Han kan ikke gi ut flere detaljer i øyeblikket, ingen tvil om familiemedlemmer er fortsatt alle til å bli fortalt, så vel som politiet har å gjøre med situasjonen.

 I'm typing this as I listen to the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg giving a second press conference this morning is harrowing. He says that some of those close to him were victims in the bombing, and that some of the young people on the island were also known to him. He cannot give out more details at the moment, no doubt as family members are still all to be told as well as the police are dealing with the situation.

I går var den mørkeste dagen i norsk historie siden andre verdenskrig. Folket i Storbritannia stod hos dem nå, og ingen tvil om vi vil igjen i dag.

Yesterday was the darkest day in Norwegian history since the Second World War. The people of the UK stood by them now and no doubt we will again today.


Mine tanker og bønner er med alle i Norge på denne tiden. De som har mistet kjære. Men også alle som ikke kan tro dette har skjedd i deres fredelige land.

 My thoughts and prayers are with all in Norway at this time. Those who have lost dear ones. But also everyone who cannot believe this has happened in their peaceful country.

De unge håpet på og jobbe for en lysere fremtid. Alle i verden bør ta opp fakkelen og sikre at vi oppnår at i minnet deres.

Those young people were hoping for and working for a brighter future. Everyone in the world should take up their torch and ensure that we acheive that in their memory. 

Cumbria

Yesterday afternoon when I heard that a gunman was shooting people in Whitehaven, my first thoughts were of my cousin who works in the town. As soon as I could I was checking on that first port of call in our social media age Facebook, to see if she had updated her profile to tell us she was OK. Thankfully she had, but for 12 others the news was not so great and further 25 had been injured.

After Hungerford and Dunblane our guns laws in the UK have become some of the most stringent in the world. But there are sometimes no way that even stringent guidelines for issuing licences can stop what locals say was the out of character actions of Derrick Bird yesterday.

With my uncle and cousin both involved in the Rugby world the fact that one of those killed was Garry Purdham a back row Rugby League forward for Wokington, brother of Rob the Harlequins captain and England cap, means there is someone they probably know among the dead.

The role of the dead includes Bird's twin brother, the solicitor dealing with a family will, fellow taxi drivers and then in indiscriminate drive by victims. The pensioner delivering shopping catalogues, the cyclist, the retired Sellafield security guard and others.

Coming so soon after the coach tragedy of 3 dead Keswick school children, indeed on the day of Chloe Walker's funeral, this small and beautiful corner of England is facing more mourning.