my god they are having a field day with this one.

when the story broke on bbc breakfast ths morning, they had some terrorism professor on the phone saying the most dangerous thing that could happen is wild speculation. then they brought on scaremongeror-in-chief frank gardner who did just that, speculating wildly about possible targets, tenuous connetions with the arrival of the new government and how 'the tactics of baghdad have come to london', suggesting that london is now sadr city

as for itv well, very similar but even scarier - more speculation about targets and potential casualties. they speculated that it coincided with the second anniversary of the july 2005 bombings - tenuous at best, and said that it could be the start of a wider campaign of car-bombings

it's all about what could have happened rather than what did happen

all this despite the fact that there is very little evidence at this early stage which points to an islamist group. but there are a lot of strange things about it. why would they just leave the car parked there if it were intended as a suicide bomb? it appears to me more IRA than al qaeda, not suggesting for a moment that the IRA are behind it, it just seems to me that it's more like the soho bombing in 1999

anyway, this circus will go on for a few days or so so use this thread to note any dodgy reporting

It's all the fault of the government for letting in immigrants, apparently. We'll overlook the whole thing about the 7/7 bombers being British-born. It was immigrants. It's always immigrants.

I thought when Frank Gardner suggested it all pointed to the bombs in Baghdad, that he was talking rubbish.

I thought the soho bomb too, i would like to know what the nightclub of which it was planted outside was.

A lot of the comments are from people who think this was a New Labour plot to bury bad news.

second car bomb found

Lots of "it's an inside job" and "it's convenient timing"

The comments are nicely ranged.

From the eh??


To Blair Bashing



To the 'I want to comment but don't have much to say'



To several sanity comments:





There were also questions as to why MI5 didn't prevent this. What I find curious about those is that firstly, MI5 prevents tons of unreported stuff, and when it is reported, people say 'it's all made up!!!'

Quite an interesting range.

Interesting discussion on BBC News 24 this morning.

Interviewer asked if radical islamic preachers thoughts on the decadent west was the motive to build car bombs.

Security Expert said that islamic exremist views on decadent society had much in common with the views of little Englanders who read the the Mail & the Express.

Drinks all round then!

Fortunely, little Englanders just rant on the Mail's website than blow up stuff.

They are usually living in Spain having been exiled there.......for some reason.

Last night, we had the BBC saying that the suspects seemed to follow Al Qaeda-like beliefs without being members, and CBS Stateside screaming that intelligence was linking them to Al Qaeda. All within about an hour at 3am.

I wonder how long it'll be before the more sensationalist version becomes standard.

Well they are all naming names now, all using trusted sources!

What happened to sub judice? Until there are charges, they can say what they fooking well like I suppose.

I really do wonder what's happened to the Contempt of Court Act these days. It feels more like a case of mass disrespect on the grounds that it wouldn't possibly be viable to prosecute every case.