Bad timing, no? On the very day that Clapham was brought to a terrified standstill by feral youths breaking into shops and assaulting police – with others filming the whole thing on their phones – the Mayor and the Met Commissioner were busy at the Foreign Office. They were telling British ambassadors, including Sir Christian Turner, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, “to challenge the disinformation, misinformation and lies” on the internet about London”. The Mayor declared: “I recognise there is a perception around the globe about London being unsafe. Of course, one crime is one crime too many, but people are spreading false propaganda about city because it serves their interests.”
Well if Sir Christopher were rash enough to raise the matter with President Trump just now (except his mind may be elsewhere), there’d be an easy riposte. The rampaging teenagers in Clapham are not propaganda, not in the eye of the beholder, not just negative thinking. It was a real phenomenon…teenagers running amok, with those not actually terrifying shopkeepers and passers by engaged in putting the whole thing on social media.
