IRA plc

‘TERRORISTS planning to destroy Cumbernauld, a 1950s carbuncle 15 miles north-east of Glasgow, between the hours of 4am and 4:45am this coming Tuesday, are invited to think again.

Princess Diana had waited a long time to get her revenge

The poor folk of this hideously ugly Scottish town wake up to hear the disappointing news that Sir Ian Blair, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, thinks there are better, more worthy, targets.

The new broom at Scotland Yard tells the Telegraph that the Royal wedding of Charles and Camilla and the General Election are ‘enormous’ potential terrorist targets.

But before Charles and Camilla are forced to marry in a bunker deep below street level, far removed from mischievous eyes and unforgiving Princess Diana fans, we wonder who the terrorists will be.

While it’s tempting to think of Her Majesty dressed as Aaron Barschak or Osama bin Laden (albeit in Burberrys turban) and threatening to destroy Windsor unless Charles and his infidel fiancée call a halt to the wedding, the idea is fanciful.

So too is the notion that the IRA will launch an attack on the British mainland.

You see, in the seven years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, the IRA has altered from an ‘organisation that had killed and terrorised in the name of republicanism’ into a gang of ‘simple thuggery and bad business’.

That’s the Times’s verdict on the IRA, which police now rank as Europe’s biggest organised crime gang.

IRA plc, as criminologists now label the organisation, has been busy during the ceasefire transforming itself into ‘a sophisticated crime syndicate’.

And, as the paper shows, the group is into all manner of badness, like counterfeit vodka, fuel smuggling and pirate DVDS.

There’s even an ‘elite robbery team’, allegedly run by one Bobby Storey, who, according to Special Branch, played a central role in the recent theft of £26.5m from the Northern Bank.

Which means that the IRA is likely to be too busy making money to bother with the business of striking fear into the hearts of the British peoples.

In any case, that’s a job best left to the police and politicians…’

Posted: 25th, February 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink