May doesn’t pause for breath in her rush to exploit the London attacks for political gain – what an utter disgrace

What a vulgar and morally  bankrupt display from Theresa May this morning as she responded to the attacks in London with a tub-thumping speech straight out of the Daily Mail’s big book of rabble rousing. No time to offer a prayer or wait for developments, she was straight out on to the podium at Downing Street to milk the opportunity for all it was worth.

What a total and utter disgrace this woman is. I am furious that anyone would use a terrorist attack as a vehicle for the deployment of rhetoric in service of political point scoring and posturing.

After announcing that the Conservatives were suspending political campaigning, she didn’t pause for breath before issuing a speech that was full of nakedly crass politicising – designed to target Jeremy Corbyn in an area her staff imagine him to be weak and hoping to whip up populist outrage in support of her flailing election campaign.

May has chosen to exploit the tragic deaths of seven people in a terrorist attack to prop up her own selfish personal political ambitions. She shows no real concern or respect for the dead or their families who surely deserve better in their grief than to be represented on the world stage by opportunist political grandstanding from the Prime Minister of their country.

All this from the woman who presided as Home Secretary for six years – yet takes not one sliver of responsibility for the year-on-year cuts in the security services.

May opined that there has been “far too much tolerance of extremism” in the UK and (ever ready with a Lynton Crosby prepared sound bite) bellowed “Enough is enough”

Wasn’t it enough in Manchester or Paris or Baghdad or Kabul? Why is it suddenly enough now? Couldn’t be that she is an losing election and needs a rallying cry could it? Does May take us all for fools?

What was needed today was to pause respectfully for the dead, to defuse the understandable but very toxic potential for the overwhelming majority of innocent Muslims to be blamed for the actions of a few evil men and to reflect thoughtfully about how to deprive terrorism of its ongoing ability to recruit.

All too predictably the British people got nothing that they needed from Theresa May – except an absolute conformation that she is a toxic mediocrity wholly unfit to lead them.

World leaders have queued up to rightly describe the attacks as ‘heinous’ and ‘cynical’ – but May proved that there isn’t much that any terrorist can teach the current British government about cynicism.

See also: Raging against the bad guys is insufficient, we have to be better than terrorists to beat them