Suddenly I feel so much safer

Statue of Boudicca in front of Big Ben. Photo by Bruno Girin.

If I dressed up in a steel breastplate and razed Colchester, London and St Albans in protest against the government of the day then I imagine I’d be denounced as a terrorist*. I mention this as today it became illegal to ‘glorify terrorism’ in the UK, so you’ll have to take my word for it that that is a picture of Boudicca outside the Houses of Parliament. I can’t show a photo of her, because that is arguably glorifying her and her Very Bad Deeds. The Act was passed because we need to ‘send a message’. Glorifying terrorism is now an offence punishable by up to twelve months in prison in England and Wales or six months in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I assume the message is terrorism is not so bad if it’s done for religious reasons.

Umm no, that can’t be right. Perhaps it’s terrorism isn’t so bad if the bomb-maker is white.

Another problem is that no one has actually defined what glorifying or terrorism mean, so perhaps the message is that the government doesn’t know what it’s doing. But did we really need the Act to tell us that?

*or at least be denounced as a terrorist twice and get one award for civic improvementOops not allowed to say that now. Let me make it unambiguously clear: killing people with bombs is bad. Unless you do it from a plane.