The Guardian gets one right

No group of human beings has a monopoly on truth or falsehood, on wisdom or foolishness.

I disagree with much that appears in The Guardian but occasionally they get something right.

Jonathan Freedland has a column on the Guardian website this evening,

"Bravery and simple humanity have shown Westminster at its' best"

which is an example. Here is the conclusion of the column.


"Yet if those who denounce Westminster had only seen it today. The speed with which the police and the emergency services ran towards danger when every human instinct would propel most of us away from it. The help ordinary people gave other ordinary people when they saw them lying hurt on Westminster Bridge. The security officers who brought a tray of tea to the police officers standing guard, watching over them. The visitors herded to safety, including a mother pushing a baby in a buggy. And the group of schoolchildren who reportedly decided to cheer up all those in lockdown in parliament’s Central Lobby with a spontaneous singsong.

Last year, on this very day, Brussels was targeted by suicide bombers who killed 32 people. For a few days, it stopped being the despised “Brussels” of anti-EU rhetoric and became Brussels, scene of tragedy. More than 20 years ago I witnessed the same transformation, when a US government building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing 168. “Federal bureaucrats” had been a hated class – until people saw them carrying their wounded and grieving for their children. Today it was “Westminster’s” turn. Not a metaphor, not a far-off citadel of wicked, scheming politicians but a real place, filled with real people – as vulnerable to an act of murderous violence as anybody else."

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