QUITE how one manages to fashion two blades out of a metal baking tray is anyone’s guess.
But that’s exactly what convicted terrorist Hashem Abedi managed to do whilst residing at His Majesty’s Pleasure at HMP Frankland — one of the UK’s supposedly top security’ prisons.
Emergency services staff tend to injured fans after the Manchester Arena attack[/caption]
Abedi stored a stash of butter sachets which he then heated to boiling point before hurling it at a female prison guard[/caption]
Prior to this illuminating episode, like me, you probably thought that a special unit in a “Category A” jail meant solitary confinement, constant monitoring via CCTV and zero privileges.
In other words, an actual punishment for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack that took the lives of 22 innocent people during the Manchester Arena bombing in May, 2017.
On top of that, he also attacked two guards while being detained in Belmarsh, so you’d imagine he’d be considered high risk and monitored 24/7.
But no. The devil is in the detail that beggars belief.
For not only did Abedi have access to a self-cook kitchen but he was able to store a stash of butter sachets which he was then heated to boiling point before hurling it at a female prison guard.
We also learn that some of his fellow “isolation” buddies — including hate preacher Anjem Choudary — were “in the gym” at the time of his attack on the three guards, two of whom remain in hospital.
Sorry? Is this a prison or a luxury Airbnb? Choudary has now been moved out of the unit, leading to reports that he may have encouraged Abedi to attack the guards.
There’s also the suggestion that, as the prison staff are mostly Brits who don’t speak Arabic, the Islamic terrorists being kept there were able to converse freely without fear of anyone in authority knowing what they were saying.
Look, it’s very simple. The majority of people in this country would agree that, when evil people like Abedi wilfully plot carnage against children and families attending a pop concert, they simultaneously wave goodbye to their own human rights.
So it’s a political slam dunk to treat such people with the same severity as, say, the US penal system.
ADX Florence in Colorado is what the Americans call a “supermax” prison “for the secure housing of those prisoners most capable of extreme violence towards staff or other inmates”.
They are confined for most of the day in single cells made of smooth concrete (to deter self-harm) and the high staff to prisoner ratios mean they are monitored under 24 hour supervision.
It is considered to be the most secure jail in the world.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for education and rehabilitation schemes in our jails for those whose circumstances meant they had a lousy start in life and who show promise for rejoining society in a meaningful and law-abiding way.
But dead-eyed men like Abedi are a lost cause.
Former prison governor Ian Acheson, who carried out a 2016 review in to Islamist extremism in jails, says: “We don’t have the death penalty so the only other alternative is extreme custody — if it turns him mad then so be it.”
Hear hear. Some might suggest he’s dangerously deranged already.
So no more gym sessions and home cookery — just lock him up and throw away the key.
Just lock Abedi up and throw away the key[/caption]
ZOOM IT HOYLE
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has recently returned from a £25k jaunt to Malaysia despite the furore surrounding his taxpayer-funded trips abroad[/caption]
SEEMINGLY undeterred by the furore surrounding his taxpayer-funded trips abroad, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has recently returned from a £25k jaunt to Malaysia.
Taking his total travel bill on ‘non-regular’ foreign trips since 2019 to, gulp, just over £320k.
Apparently, it’s to ‘further parliamentary relations,’ whatever that means.
Surely that’s the job of cabinet ministers and diplomats?
And even if foreign dignatories are chomping at the bit to speak to a bloke that most would struggle to name, it can be done via Zoom and save us a fortune.
ROCKET RIDE IS BIT LIMP
The all-female, 11-minute ‘space mission’ was an unnecessary jaunt that will have released the equivalent of a lifetime’s worth of an individual’s carbon emissions[/caption]
It’s hard to know what was funnier about the all-female, 11-minute ‘space mission’ involving, among others, pop star Katy Perry and Meghan Markle’s mate Gayle King.
The fact that the rocket resembled a giant penis and was organised by a man called Dave Limp.
Or that Jeff Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sanchez gushed: “I am proud of this crew . . . protect this planet we’re on.”
By going on a completely unnecessary jaunt that will have released the equivalent of a lifetime’s worth of an individual’s carbon emissions? Yeah right.
Space cadets indeed.
RAISE YOUR GAME SNL, TO RAISE A REAL SMILE
White Lotus actress Aimee Lou Wood has described a Saturday Night Live sketch as ‘mean’[/caption]
In the sketch, comedian Sarah Sherman wore prosthetic teeth and said ‘Fluoride? What’s that?’[/caption]
WHITE Lotus actress Aimee Lou Wood has described a Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of her teeth as “mean”.
She’s right. The American comedy show’s White Potus skit replaced all the main characters with political impersonations of Donald Trump, his family and advisers – except for Aimee’s whose role was reduced to comedian Sarah Sherman wearing prosthetic teeth and saying, ‘Fluoride? What’s that?’
“I have big gap teeth not bad teeth,” says Brit Aimee, 31.
SNL is a TV behemoth in the States and has featured stars such as Goldie Hawn, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy.
And now its creator Lorne Michaels is launching a UK version next year.
But, whisper it, having watched it many times in the States and seen mostly slapstick clips online, I just don’t find it funny.
And the cheap Aimee dig has confirmed that they need to raise their game if they want laughs over here.
A NEW poll has revealed that nearly half of us are secretly pleased when social plans get cancelled at the last minute.
‘Secretly’ pleased?
I do cartwheels.
BOATS ISSUE GROWS
A local, 54-bedroom hotel in the village of Datchet, near Windsor, is being used to house some small boat migrants[/caption]
THE lovely weather on Saturday saw the highest total of small boat arrivals this year – 656 people to be precise.
Which brings the total number this year to 8,064 – and it’s only mid-April.
A Home Office spokesperson says: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.”
Indeed. These mass arrivals are also changing the face of this country.
Take the village of Datchet near Windsor, in Berkshire, where a local, 54-bedroom hotel is being used to house some of them.
Datchet’s Conservative MP Jack Rankin says: “There shouldn’t be 70 unvetted asylum seekers who are young single men in a quaint little village in England. It’s also not fair on local businesses.”
Remarkably, he has managed to persuade the Home Office to close the asylum hotel by the end of May because of its impact on GP waiting lists and the ‘social cohesion of the village.’
They will be moved to other hotels near Heathrow airport where, it is claimed, they’ll have less of an impact on local communities.
Which isn’t solving the problem; just shifting it somewhere else. Sigh.
METTLE NEEDED
HOW is it the UK’s steel industry has ended up in such dire straits?
Well, a letter to The Times by long-standing energy executive Neil Bailey might provide a partial answer.
He writes: “Companies I worked for have offered significant investment to increase efficiencies in the steelmaking process, all of which were soundly rejected by the unions … it is a travesty that the taxpayer is now bailing out these archaic industries and allowing the unions to continue to have a future say in any changes that are made.”
As George Bernard Shaw once said: “Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
IT’S been reported that Prince William has been keen to make a supportive visit to war-torn Ukraine for some time, but officials have stopped him on security grounds.
Meanwhile, his estranged brother Harry flew there straight from the Royal Courts of Justice where he’s been arguing that it’s too risky for him to visit, er, the UK without full-scale security protection. Go figure.
As he left court, Harry told waiting press that “people would be shocked by what’s being held back” by the other side.
I’m sure that, once he’s told Meghan and she’s told Omid Scobie, we will all be reading about it in due course.