The train now leaving from platform 6, sorry platform 8…
Well, that’s just great, isn’t it?
BBC News: Reid reveals 7 July account error
The home Secretary has asked police to explain why a mistake was made in the government’s version of what happened on the day of the London bombings.
John Reid revealed the time at which the bombers left Luton station to head to London was wrong in the official “narrative” of 7 July 2005.
Did nobody think to double check? Did nobody at the Home Office think to make sure the police had it right (Christ know, they’ve been a bit off the mark of late and have been known in the past to be fuzzy on the details)? Even a half-way decent blogger reads things through to make sure their humble efforts aren’t too shabby.
This is an ultimately trivial detail of the narrative but it plays into the hands of the conspiracy nuts who’ve made enough fuss about train times as it is. And their calls for a public inquiry get lumped in by the Government with those from reasonable people with reasonable reasons for having one and everybody gets labelled as yahoos.
As for the Home Office, it was probably too much to expect that a department that can’t get its accounts right or count foreign prisoners would be able to verify the time the first suicide bombers on British soil caught a train. If these people were to get into an arse-kicking contest with a one-legged man, I think we all know who’d win.
Posted on July 11th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Read below with Craig Murray’s phanthom forces to topple Uzbhetistan.
The Metropolitan Police have solidly maintained since they first published the Luton CCTV pic, that the “suicide bombers” travelled on the 7.40 Luton - King X train, despite the superb sleuthing to show that the train never ran.
Now Reid tries to conceal that lie with another.
…oh what a tangled web we weave!
Another Dodgy Dossier crumbles under close examination.
It all sounds pretty trivial, but wasn’t there a fairly detailed official account, soon after the event, which falls apart if they were on the 7.25? I read about it on a blog, so it must be true…
Oops, forgot to follow the link. Never mind.
Hey Justin, no fair on “plays into the hands of the conspiracy nuts”. If it wasn’t for Bridget Dunne’s work on this, this rather important fact would have been buried forever. I don’t agree with all of those theories, and obviously can’t countenance the harassment of Rachel North on her site, but the analysis is a bit more complicated than yours or the one in Mark Honigsbaum’s article and I think a lot more credit is due to “conspiracy nuts” than they are getting.
I mean, the fact that the Home Office got it wrong is certainly a story. But the fact that Bridget Dunne got it right is also a story, and it is much too easy to just erase it by saying “ah, conspiracy nuts”.
Phil: the problem IIRC arises because the timestamp on the Luton CCTV footage suggests that they got on the 0740.
Just checked it out, and they arrive at Luton station at 0721. This would have been a bit tight to catch the 0724 but I caught the exact same Thameslink last week with two minutes to spare and I had heavier luggage than them. So there is no timeline inconsistency but it is still a pretty poor show.
You know DD, I’m not sure if you’re being ironic here or not.
I’m not. I think that the so-called “conspiracy nuts” get a very bad press and do some very useful work. It is hardly surprising that they often lack social skills given the way in which they are treated and the undiscriminating way in which people checking up on inconsistencies in official documents are trivialised and dismissed.
The facts of the matter here are that a blogger did original research, effectively used FOIA requests and got a correction made to an important Home Office document. Surely a “well done” is more appropriate than a couple of casual insults. But Bridget Dunne isn’t the right kind of person, and has some friends who look a bit funny and so she gets ignored.
The “conspiracy nuts”, as far as I can see, want a public inquiry for the same “reasonable reasons” as the self-defined “reasonable people” - because the Home Office narrative is visibly flawed, contains inconsistences and has large and material ommissions. I don’t see why a large part of the community of interest in this matter should be dismissed, or why their correct identification of a pretty important mistake in the narrative should be called “conspiracy nuts making a fuss about train times”. Seen from the right perspective, Les Roberts is a “conspiracy nut making a fuss about body counts” and you are a “conspiracy nut making a fuss about loans to political parties”.
Sorry about this; it’s a bit of an autopilot rant aimed at the pretty scandalous way in which the academic history community have treated parapolitical researchers.
(full disclosure - I have never corresponded with Bridget Dunne other than, if I remember correctly, to cc her my email of complaint to Camden Council for abusing their “vexatious communications” policy with respect to her).
Hardly a trivial detail as the 7.25 was not given as the time the train left Luton in ANY newspaper or media report for over a year, nor was it given in the official report. How would witnesses have come forward? “Oh I was on the 7.25 so I won’t have seen anything?” Doesn’t Ian Blair’s ‘largest criminal inquiry in British history’ require witnesses?
As for’reasonable people’, is this some kind of new apartheid? Who decides who a ‘reasonable person’ is? Are ‘unreasonable people’ not entitled to know the truth about these events?
Even ‘conspiracy nuts’ (a useful label which implies you need pay no attention or think they have anything valuable or even reasonable to say) are entitled to question the veracity and
accuracy of what we are being told happened that day.
Does it make me a ‘conspiracy nut’ to question why one week after these events the Metropolitan Police had every single explosion on the trains wrong? Is this acceptable?
The explosions were on:
Circle Line train travelling from Liverpool Street to Aldgate station. The device was in the[b] third carriage[/b] of a train approx. 100 yards into the tunnel.
Westbound Circle Line train coming into Edgware Road station, approx. 100 yards into the tunnel. The explosion [b]blew a hole through a wall onto another train on an adjoining platform.[/b] The device was in the second carriage, in the standing area near the first set of double doors.
Piccadilly Line train travelling from Kings Cross to Russell Square, approx 600 metres into the tunnel. The device was in the first carriage, in the standing area [b]near the first set of double doors[/b].
The narrative states the carraige on the Aldgate train. A FOI request to TFL states that there was no damage to a tunnel wall or adjoining train at Edgware Rd. The Piccadilly line explosion was at the rear of carriage one.
Are these discrepencies acceptable or easily explained?
The July Seventh Truth Campaign calls for the evidence to be released to support the narrative. One cctv with unidentifiable faces 30 miles from the scene is unacceptable as evidence of guilt. We also call for a Fully Independent Public Inquiry but outside of the limitations of the Inquiries Act 2005 (a piece of legislation that prevents the family of Pat Finucane from examining the complicity of the State in his murder).
No apologies for being unreasonable by questioning if the British State that is responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and which now turns a blind eye to the barbaric slaughter by the Israeli State of hundreds more innocents, is capable of being complicit in a lie.
History tells me otherwise.
Preview option would be useful!
The above should read: the narrative states the second carriage on the Aldgate train.
The link for the MPS statement is:
MPS One Week Anniversary Appeal
Who decides who a ‘reasonable person’ is?
On my blog, I do.
“Chicken Shit sorry Yogurt”
You see, Bridget? You just don’t do yourself any favours. I was going to respond at length but I’ve decided I don’t want to play with you.
I’ll just say this: Occam’s razor suggests that much of what you say is off the mark. The number of people required to fabricate and execute a false-flag job would be rather large, I expect. Those people have wives, families, friends. I suggest that a cover-up of such magnitude could not stay secret for long. Somebody would blab. Sometimes people are stupid rather than supervillains.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones methinks.
The abusive term ‘conspiracy nut’ and being characterised as ‘unreasonable’ for no apparent reason other than your own prejudices and bias, hardly does you any favours either. I receive no end of abuse and never return it, but understandably get fed up of it. I apologise and will change the link.
One possible scenario: Placing bombs in rucksacks and leaving them on trains requires maybe a couple of people. Disappearing 4 men from cars requires a couple more. Hardly a large number of people required to execute a ‘false-flag’ operation.
Who benefits? Why would 4 young men think there was anything to gain by carrying out these acts?
Of course all of this speculation can be prevented and the truth can be proved by releasing the evidence.
Ho Ho
http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html
I’d just like to say, Bridget, that your twee use of ‘methinks’ is by *miles* your most irritating characteristic.
None of which changes the FACT, for it is now an established and documented FACT that the Official Report of the London Bombings is wrong, as admitted before Parliament by the Home Secretary, Dr John Reid.
No ‘methinks’ about it, methinks.
Moreover, it is wrong in a detail that is perhaps one of the simplest and most trivial details to confirm, one which even an ordinary member can, and did, confirm back in August 2005.
No ‘methinks’ about that either, methinks.
Now, ‘Rachel North’, would you care to explain your position on the Inquiries Act 2005, an act opposed by Amnesty International and many other human, legal and civil rights organisations and which Amnesty International summarised in their AI Report 2006 as follows:
If you again choose to not address the issue of the Inquiries Act 2005, perhaps it might be opportune to make it clear to those whom you ask to sign the inquiry petition that their signatures are in support of an inquiry under the terms of an act that is being boycotted by judges because it undermines the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and which fails to provide for effective, independent, impartial or thorough public inquiries.
Antagonist: that is a needlessly aggressive way to speak.
Justin: I don’t think that Occam’s Razor is a particularly useful rule of thumb when taken outside of the realm for which it was designed (metaphysical philosophy). Political events happen for all sorts of reasons, which rarely involve the minimum possible number of entities.
If we look at this anyway, I don’t think your argument makes too much sense. It doesn’t take any more people to organise a false-flag operation than a true-flag one. And the actual 7/7 bombers had friends, families etc and they haven’t been able to provide any useful information about anything.
I happen to think that a false-flag operation is very unlikely as there is a much more convincing explanation of the operation as a true-flag operation but nor can I sign up without proof to simply saying “sometimes people are just stupid rather than supervillains”. It is quite possible indeed that the official narrative is covering something up (for example, the involvement of an Al Qaeda cadre who is a British intelligence asset) and that the train time thing is in some way related to this.
The idea that conspiracies can’t be kept secret is the equivalent to the economist’s joke that a £10 note lying on the pavement can’t be there because somebody would have picked it up and it’s just as bad a piece of analysis. I was personally involved in at least one event as a civil servant that I thought would leak but it didn’t.
On the other hand, needless aggression is not a constructive way to proceed. The Inquiries Act is a bad piece of legislation, but it is all we are going to get - in particular, it is wholly unrealistic to expect that any public inquiry run outside of the IA05 would be any more independent in any meaningful way, because it would be run by the same people.
I have this argument all the time on parapolitics mailing lists; it’s characteristic of newbies to the lists (I am more of a dilettante myself). Along with “cui bono”, “follow the money” and other useful investigative techniques, it is always vital to use the twin techniques of “does the evidence really rule out all other possibilities?” and “is my case really strong enough to warrant being such a dick about it?”
dsquared: I prefer the terms, ‘terse’, ‘direct’ and ‘to the point’.
In fairness to all parties, it wasn’t any of us who kicked off with the term, ‘conspiracy nuts’, as a reference to Independent public researchers whose dedicated research efforts were in part validated by the Home Secretary’s admission before Parliament that the Official Report of the London bombings is wrong.
Nor was it any of us who chose to pen a personal dig at one of the researchers.
In the course of our ongoing research, we have been repeatedly confronted with one or two people who insist on following Tony Blair’s ad hominem maxim of playing the man, not the ball, when there are very many serious issues that need addressing.
You are to be commended for recognising both the validity of independent public research and the levels of abuse that those who dare to question the evidence-free Official Report have received thus far.
You know what? I’m rapidly ceasing give a fuck any more.
This was largely motivated on my part by the disgraceful behaviour meted out by some to Rachel North, a person I have met and like very much. She can tell you all about ad hominem and it’s gone a little further for her than mere playground insults.
I painted too broadly and for that I apoligise. I repeat, however, the treatment Rachel and others have had to put up with over the last year, for simply having boarded the wrong train and wishing to speak out afterwards, is close to unforgiveable in my opinion.
As for Bridget, if I have caused offence then I sincerely apologise. Her and I have exhanged emails - on the trivial matter of this blog’s comment spam filter - in which she has been unfailingly friendly and polite.
dsquared: I prefer the terms, ‘terse’, ‘direct’ and ‘to the point’.
I prefer a nice wank in a hot bath, but facts are facts, and a little bit of research reveals that you (or people associated with your website) cop-baited Rachel. Accusing someone of being an undercover cop is about the most serious charge you can make - it certainly gets you thrown off proper parapolitics lists at first offence. Whatever the rights and wrongs of who insulted who, cop-baiting is never OK.
dsquared, you said:
“and a little bit of research reveals that you (or people associated with your website) cop-baited Rachel.”
I do not know of any occasion where somebody associated with the JulySeventh website has ever ‘cop-baited’ Rachel North. I am not sure where your research led you, but if you could provide a link, I would be grateful.
It is rather unfair to back up your statement that this accusation of Rachel North being an undercover cop was made by ‘you’ (not sure if ‘you’ meant the Antagonist or all of us involved with the campaign) with the notion that if it wasn’t, then it must have been someone associated with our site. Just on the basis that some people have done this who appear to be on the same ’side’, it should not be assumed that our campaign endorses this kind of behaviour and that those engaging in it somehow represent everybody who has questions about the events of July 7th.
If there were people on our forum doing this, they would be asked to desist. I have seen Rachel North labelled “cointelpro”, a “shill” and other pointless assertions by people I have no association with other than contributing to the same comment thread or message board and it does not make for a constructive discussion.
To return to the topic, John Reid failed to mention that the 0740 was cancelled. He also said that the change of train time did not seem to affect the rest of the narrative. However, the narrative mentions witnesses who may have seen the four on the train. These witnesses could not have been on the cancelled 0740. Without fuller information about their statements these witnesses cannot be regarded as reliable.
The MPS have been reported as saying that they did not supply a train time to the Home Office. They thought that the 0740 time came from “erroneous first hand eyewitness statements” which they passed on to the Home Office.
We are yet to hear officially whether the timestamp on the CCTV camera outside Luton station was seven minutes fast or not.
Kier, I was specifically thinking of this comment, which appears to me to be pure and simple cop-baiting. I am happy to clarify that by “your website” I meant http://antagonise.blogspot.com/ rather than the JulySeventh website and apologise for any confusion.
dsquared: That ‘nice wank in a hot bath’ of which you are so fond appears to have affected more than just your eyesight.
The correct link is here, where I wrote:
Perhaps you could clarify which bit of that qualifies as, “Accusing someone of being an undercover cop”?
The passage beginning “it fuels the fire” is quite clearly casting aspersions on Rachel North and suggesting that she is involved in a cover-up. That’s cop-baiting. To be honest, the convention against cop-baiting is one of the best established principles of the parapolitics community so I am surprised that you are having problems understanding it. A remark like that is not “terse”, it is not “direct” and it is not “to the point”. It is a rather slimy insinuation and it would pass as cop-baiting on any mailing list I am currently subscribed to, and would get you thrown off.
dsquared said: I don’t think your argument makes too much sense. It doesn’t take any more people to organise a false-flag operation than a true-flag one.
The ‘no-bombs’ bombers of the 21/7 have led to over 40 arrests with 17 standing trial. The 7/7 ‘bombers’ - no other arrests or trial. Hard to figure that one.
dsquared asks: it is always vital to use the twin techniques of “does the evidence really rule out all other possibilities?
The problem is: what evidence have we seen? Apart from the one image of the 4 suspects outside Luton with unidentifiable faces, no other hard evidence exists in the public domain. Compare to the number of images released after the events of 21/7 and also the sequence shown from the so-called ‘rehearsal’ of the 28/6 which show 3 of the 4, and no credible reason given for this.
Two of the 4 had apparantly made ‘confession videos’ which didn’t in fact confess to these events at all.
Until more evidence is released to support the narrative, whose facts have already been discredited, all other possibilities remain ‘ruled in’.
I appreciate the apology Justin and just for Rachel I will drop the ‘methinks’.