CARS and homes were set ablaze by riots in Belfast last night. But for reasons some newspapers broadly approve of, which is why they get this spin:
It was definitely an asylum seeker this time
While describing the terrible riots, underline that on this occasion the attacker wasn’t inconveniently born here or from a racial group you’d unwittingly failed to previously demonise, but an actual asylum seeker and what’s more, one who’d exploited a loophole. Leave these facts next to pictures of burning homes, casually.
The migrants’ homes that were attacked were taxpayer-funded
Obviously nobody wants masked men with weapons going door-to-door to find anyone with the wrong skin colour. But it is worth mentioning, just by the by, that some of those innocents threatened with death are living in properties where the council pays their rent. Or not. In case that changes your views on death threats at all.
Refer non-judgementally to ‘fury’
Funny thing, ‘fury’, isn’t it? Because when it’s felt by the wrong people, for example in riots that are about a police shooting, then it’s unjustifiable and should be punished with punitive sentencing to set an example. But in these particular riots, in response to a horrific attempted murder, ‘fury’ is understandable, or even appropriate. We should not condemn.
Quote your preferred sources
All the politicians will be quoted, even the Northern Irish ones most decent Britons have rightly never heard of. Most of them will be against the violence. But if you can find a brave few unafraid of standing out of the crowd? Perhaps Rupert Lowe, or Robert Jenrick, or even Kemi Badenoch? Shame Tommy Robinson’s in Russia.
Have a sudden shift of attitude toward Northern Irish men in balaclavas
For years they’ve been the enemy, terrorists, friends of Jeremy Corbyn, unjustifiably taking our poor soldiers to court for Bloody Sunday and the like. But today, those figures are not to be so easily dismissed as thugs, for do they not speak for whole communities in setting fire to cars and doing wheelies down streets? Beneath their masks, are they not white?
