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Bakri Packs

by | 9th, August 2005

‘DO you know why we are winning the war on terror? God’s on our side? We’ve bigger jets. Our uniforms don’t chaffe the skin? Those and more are all valid reasons. But the true answer is because we have the Sun.

‘Dear all, weather: hot; food: hot; beard: hot. Wish I wasn’t here. Luv Omar’

Such is the paper’s power, we dread to think what would happen if Rupert Murdoch established a similar title in the less leafy parts of Pakistan, whipping the locals into a frenzy as babes bring the region their “News in Burkhas”.

For now we can only be thankful that such power is exclusively at our deposable. And today we can read on the paper’s front page that “hate” sheik Omar Bakri, aka the mad mullah, aka the Tottenham Taliban, has fled the country “after being forced out of Britain by the Sun”.

In the paper’s editorial, readers learn that the Sun has been pressing for Bakri to leave these shores for years. “It’s a great victory for us,” it cheers.

And one we and all the papers can share in, although it is more than a little churlish of the Mirror to make no mention of the Sun’s efforts as it tells its readers that Bakri has exchanged Edmonton for Beirut.

Given the greyness of parts of the north London area, it could be argued that Beirut offers Bakri a kind of home from home – although one in which he will not have to pay a congestion charge as he navigates his Ford Galaxy into the central city areas.

The Mail also fails to give the Sun its dues. And in an abridged look at Bakri’s life – expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1986; entered UK as an asylum seeker; granted indefinite leave to stay; saw first Arsenal match in 1988 – reminds us how he was given that £31,000 Ford Galaxy under the Government’s Mobility scheme.

But while the care remains in Blighty – Bakri baulked at the chance to take the pretty way by road to Lebanon and flew by plane instead – the man is gone.

And though Liberal Democrat spokesman Simon Hughes is right when he tells the Mail “I guess the blunt public reaction will be ‘thank goodness for that’”, others may just miss the man a little.

And that includes the Sun, which will have to find a new face of Muslim extremism to entertain and scare its readers with. “But remember this,” it writes, “Bakri was just one of the extremist lunatics in our midst.” There are “many more”.

And with the Sun on their case, they should start packing now…’



Posted: 9th, August 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink