Not just a PR war

I can’t agree with Will Davies’s take on the PR effort around today’s attacks. He’s right that the Government has become much more aware of the PR aspect of terrorism, and that there has been a lot of expectation management over the last few years.

However, he closes with:

Government is effectively reneging on its responsibility to keep us actually safe, and [has] retreated to a responsibility to respond efficiently when the enemy does strike?

which is surely wrong.

The Government has been playing a good PR game, but that’s not to say it hasn’t been working behind the scenes to prevent attacks. There has been some public action: the anti-terror laws and arrests around the country, for all they were controversial.

Anti-terror activities are never going to be telegraphed across the front of the papers. I don’t hold a particular brief for the Government, but its getting a clue on managing reactions doesn’t mean it’s losing its grip elsewhere.

Bad, but not new

Salon’s War Room says:

Londoners […] are suddenly feeling the kind of shock and vulnerability that the residents of New York and Madrid know all too well.

Well, up to a point. I’m certainly not feeling some completely new and terrifying vulnerability, like New Yorkers seem to have after September 11th. As people have been saying on the news, we survived the IRA, we can survive this. The Guardian
has a list of terrorist attacks on the UK mainland.

Impactful

Deep Impact hit comet Tempel-1 today, with good results and a huge plume of debris, brightening the comet by a factor of 11. One excited scientist quoted by the Register said:

“We’ll really be able to constrain our models with the new data.”

Yeah, baby! I shouldn’t be sarcastic. It sounds dull – but it may actually be quite exciting.

Jackanory returns

In a piece of excellent news, Jackanory – the children’s programme where people read stories – is returning to TV. It’s such a simple format, but so effective. Almost Reithian in theory, I remember it from my childhood as a fun, involving programme. Long may it continue!