TOTALLY NORMAL TERROR COURSE

By Phil Jails

IN a sign of how normalised terrorism has become in the UK, event organisers in the “sleepy” Lake District are being signposted by our councils towards free anti-terror training modules.

A 69-year-old woman thinking of setting up an arts weekend tells The Chronic that she was directed by Cumberland Council to complete a national E-Learning course about how to guard against marauding attackers – c0mplete with tips on identifying improvised exploding devices.

Disturbed and increasingly cross by what she saw on the course and how “normalised” this has become, she contacted a news publication in Cumbria to complain.

But her concerns were apparently shrugged off by a young newshound as “not really a story” as she was informed that terror awareness training for event organisers is now totally normal.

(Maybe so among certain generations but as a retiree of 69 who remembers the Lake District of her youth, she was very offended by this and asks if we are now just supposed to accept the threat of terror as part of everyday life in rural Cumbria?)

Are we not allowed to “notice” anymore, she demands, saying this climate was “unthinkable” even a decade ago.

She says she wrote in a letter but never got any response and doesn’t believe it was ever used.

Indeed, councils in Cumbria are signposting organisers of public events to a series of online modules by the National Counter Terrorism Security Office.

(It’s the first thing we think of when organising a coffee morning & tombola!)

Cumberland Council says it is working with Cumbria Police and Counter Terrorism Policing North West to provide event organisers with advice and support on how to counter terror when planning an event. It’s probably par for the course.

Participants in the modules are warned that mass gatherings in public spaces are “attractive” to terrorists as they offer “the best chance of mass casualties”.

Unsurprisingly, no specific organisation, ideology or religion is ever named.

Those taking part in this training are told: “Individuals who participate in terror offences can come from any background and demographic.”

However, the 2015 Tunisia Beach & Hotel Shooting, during which 38 people were shot dead (30 of them British), and 39 others wounded, is referenced in the “marauding attacker” module.

It was, of course, carried out by, ahem, someone of a non-Christian persuasion, who was motivated by the Syrian Civil War and whose doctrine regarded hotels as “brothels”.

Nope, we’ve no idea who that is.

As for our arts event organiser in the Lakes, she decided to simply host a private Afternoon Tea in her garden with friends.

The sum raised for charity was considerably down on what it could have been, but at least the atmos wasn’t ruined by armed plod and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Here’s some clips below of the training she had to complete...