7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip (#77CRT - Complete Retardation Television)

Conspiracy Road Tripping - A Brief History

The airing on 1^st October 2012 of 7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip on BBC3 is the second attempt by the BBC to appear to tackle the thorny subject of the 7/7 narrative, once again through the curious method of ignoring the allegations contended in the official narrative in favour of lampooning some gullible fools who have nothing to do with the story of 7/7, other than a passing and naive interest in the subject, often for the purposes of self-aggrandisement¹.

The Tripping Conspiracy Bus Set

The first 7/7 Conspiracy Files effort, "an affront to journalism", was sensitively aired in June 2009, just a few weeks before the 4^th anniversary of 7/7. The basis of the first production was to lampoon a bunch of nonsense touted on the Internet. The show focused on risible speculation lifted from a YouTube production "7/7 Ripple Effect", made no-less by a self-professed messiah and "Rightful King of Britain and Israel". Prior to the show's production, J7 were approached by the BBC and, as is usual with these things, we documented the BBC’s attempts to cajole J7 into the production. Needless to say, J7 declined to participate in round one of the sham 7/7 documentary game. J7's decision not to participate proved to be a wise one as the show followed precisely the format we predicted.

Thrilled though we were that some of the many outstanding questions that call into doubt the veracity of the 7/7 narrative were to be aired on a British State Broadcasting Corporation channel, the validity of these questions was soon to receive far greater acknowledgement than any provided by the BBC, this time from the British State's own judicial wing in the form of the proceedings referred to as the 7/7 Inquests. In the opening remarks to the inquest Hugo Keith, prized defender of the Queen and State as well as being Counsel to the Inquests, said:

Some of the questions may never fully be answered
and some may of course also fall outside the scope of
these inquests, but what we can say is that a great deal
of time, energy and resources has been devoted to
finding out what happened to each deceased. Thus it is
to be hoped that these inquests, however unpleasant and
distressing, as they will be, will assist in answering
the families' questions in allaying some of the rumours
and suspicion generated by conspiracy theorists.
I'll return a little later to the question of
whether there is, in truth, any basis for some of the
theories that have been canvassed in the press and on
the internet.

As anyone bothering to follow the inquest proceedings that followed-on from an event as serious and significant as 7/7 will know, these proceedings gave rise to many more questions than answers. From the outset of the process right through to its conclusion J7 analysed in detail the inquest proceedings on the dedicated J7: 7/7 Inquests Blog.

At the very least it should be understood about the 7 July Inquest process that:

• The inquest process opened with reference to "conspiracy theories" but without acknowledging that the official British State narrative of 7/7 remains to this day an unproven conspiracy theory;
• the inquest process fulfilled none of the functions of a proper and legitimate inquest process;
• the inquests provided a semi-legitimate, semi-official run-through and re-iteration of a pre-determined but still unproven conclusion;
• limited amounts of evidence were released into the public domain for the first time.
• Lady Justice Hallet's refused to re-open the Inquests into the four deceased members of the public who stand accused of being responsible;
• the families of the accused were refused the right to legal representation, thereby foreclosing before the Inquests even started on many issues that might otherwise have been examined at the families' request.
• The inquest process closed with reference to "conspiracy theories" but without acknowledging – for a second time – that the official British State narrative still remains an unproven conspiracy theory, despite the best of efforts of various arms of the State apparatus including the government, police, judiciary and its propaganda organ known as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Hallett's closing remarks were carefully worded to counter any doubts or questions that the public might hold in respect of 7/7 and, in doing so, highlighted clearly the concerns that lie at the heart of the British establishment, and by extension at the heart of the British State's senior partners in the U.S.:

"To argue or find to the contrary [i.e. that Khan, Tanweer, Hussein and Lindsay were not the bombers] would be irrational. It would be to ignore a huge body of evidence from a vast array of sources. Had there been a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in the murder plot, as some have suggested, it would have been of such massive proportions as to be simply unthinkable in a democratic country. It would have involved hundreds of ordinary people, members of the bombers’ families, their friends, their fellow terrorists, independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service. It would have cost millions of pounds to fabricate the forensic evidence. Independent barristers and solicitors who have had access to the source material (for example the CCTV footage) during the criminal trials and these proceedings would have had to be involved. Just to state the proposition is to reveal its absurdity."

J7 countered the fallacy of this flawed but hugely popular argument on our 7/7 inquest blog. In summary:
The official conspiracy theory holds that unbeknown to friends, family and the security services four young men conspired to manufacture the events of 7/7. Yet, if the flawed logic of official conspiracy theorists is to be believed, a conspiracy involving anyone other than the four accused amateurs would be so massive as to be "simply unthinkable".

That the British Establishment does cover-up and conspire against the public on a grand scale has been proven true on numerous occasions, including more recently the revelations about the appalling and disgraceful treatment of the Hillsborough disaster victims' families – 23 years for aspects of a truth long known by the families to emerge – and a safe enough length of time to allow anger and emotions to simmer down, while few of those responsible are to be held accountable and face the justice they so richly deserve for their parts in the two-decades long Hillsborough conspiracy.

Understandably, but unfortunately, the 52 bereaved families of 7/7 victims seeking a fully independent Public Inquiry gave up their fight against the State apparatus, albeit reluctantly, at the close of the 7/7 inquest performance stating, "It would appear that official lines have now, after much resistance, been closed to us."

The 7/7/ Conspiracy Road Trip Meltdown

7/7's infamous Mohammed Siddique Khan, according to new (but failed)
research by the BBC 7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip team (edited out for repeat showings)

So, with a bit of context for the latest Conspiracy Road Trip laid out, let's all now climb aboard the 7/7 CRT bang-bus for another round of intelligence torture, courtesy of 7/7 Complete Retardation Television, a mockumentary made by the ex-BBC staffers at Renegade Pictures, for the BBC, with and for gullible idiots, all presented by a little-known Irish comedian, Andrew Maxwell.

Maxwell opens the show with:

"Back in the seventies the cops in Britain did fit up innocent Irish people for terrorist bombings. I mean, to have a giant suspicion of the British establishment, I can understand. But does that all add up to Blair and presumably Brown and... at least a dozen of them would have to be in on it. Did they all conspire, to then blow up loads of other Brits in the city centre? It doesn't add up for me."

Of course, Andrew Maxwell also said:

"I assumed he [Abu Hamza] was a spy, or a tout. I mean I'd imagine the actual real dudes that we're meant to be chasing around are, y'know, below the surface, right? Lily-whites? People with absolutely no connection to radical mosques or something like that. Maybe not even obviously be Muslim, maybe have a Celtic accent."

Credit, as ever, where it's due - Maxwell made this statement on his road-based trip:

"There is no CCTV evidence after this image in King's Cross train station actually showing them on the tube or the underground platforms."

Which is true, incredible though it is. There is no CCTV footage that places the accused on the London underground on the morning of 7/7. But let's not worry about trivial details like this, or that there is a 20 minute period during the crucial moments of 7/7 for which all the underground CCTV systems happened to be offline. Now is probably also not the time to forget that, as outlined above, the 'British establishment' of course includes the British State Broadcasting Corporation that funds Mr Maxwell's little flights of conspiracy fancy. This is the same BBC which has repeatedly dedicated much time, effort, expense and airtime to countering and debunking so-called 'conspiracy theories' surrounding the events in London on 7 July 2005, when four explosions on an increasingly unaffordable public transport system killed 56 people.

In the seven years that have passed since 7/7, the BBC has never yet subjected the official narrative to any scrutiny at all, much less the extreme levels of scrutiny it seems to reserve solely for anyone with the temerity to notice the State has failed to meet the burden of proof required to prove its own gap-riven conspiracy theory.

Andrew Maxwell concedes at the outset of the programme that, "to have a giant suspicion of the British establishment, I can understand". However, he then says, "But does that all add up to Blair and presumably Brown, at least a dozen of them would have to have been in on it, (see, there's that logic again, "If it wasn't the four we keep saying it is, it must have been an impossible amount of others.") did they all conspire to then blow loads of other Brits up in the city centre? It doesn't add up for me".

This line establishes the false hypothesis the show is designed to ridicule, but it is also telling for another reason. Maxwell, whose country of birth has a long history of being at the wrong end of British State interests, also failed to acknowledge the parallel power structures that are openly and routinely acknowledged for anyone that cares to look; that there is a state within the state, a secret state in which the real power-brokers and wire-pullers operate behind the theatrical curtains of parliamentary democracy. Unelected and unaccountable to anyone, hidden from sight. These are the generals, the heads of the intelligence agencies, top Whitehall bureaucrats, the judiciary, privately financed trusts, shell organisations, royalty and other monied and business interests.

Furthermore, quite what the qualifications are of a little-known Irish comedian might be for pronouncing definitively on a variety of subjects that include major terrorist attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 have – like much to do with the story of 7/7 – yet to be revealed. This fairly significant stumbling block aside stands not in the way of the BBC conspiracy documentary MO that continues to be the favoured approach for the production of its mockumentaries in the low-grade style of Conspiracy Road Trip's factually and intellectually challenging format, as well as that of other efforts such as the equally insulting 7/7 Conspiracy Files.

BBC Balked at genuine collaboration opportunities

The BBC and the Renegade Productions team were certainly given opportunities to engage with us about the subject of their programme. As a campaign group, having already bathed in the muddy waters of BBC promises and programme scopes, we declined to participate. However, one J7 member and supporter, Tom Secker, who himself has made two excellent films on the subject, 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction and 7/7 Crime and Prejudice, attempted to work openly and honestly with the production team, only to have his serious efforts laid to waste after requesting that he be allowed to film independently for his own record any interviews or interactions. Clearly BBC-related crews are careful to avoid being played at their own game, despite the fact that, unlike the BBC itself, Tom Secker has no track record of selectively editing footage to make the case for a priori false conclusions:

Hi Oliver,

Frankly, being bumped to talking to someone else is not really going to reassure me of anything. As I made clear, I will only agree to beinvolved in this show if I can run my own camera and if I can talk to people who have direct experience of the investigations.

When I asked how far you'd got on achieving the co-operation of my very short list your response was "Murphy is a possibility as is Roberts. Todd and Clarke unlikely. We will have similar people at worst. I'm currently waiting to hear back from Blair... (would be a result!)" This does not fill me with confidence. I don't see how we will find with anyone 'similar' to Dr Julie Ann Roberts, because she performed a specific and significant role in the investigation that no one else has any authority to discuss because they did not do what she did. Similarly, it is Clifford Todd who has given vastly contradictory testimony about the nature of the explosive used in the bombings, and there's no point me asking some other random so-called explosives expert why that is because it is only Todd who is in a position to speak on that. As I have said all along, I have no interest in talking to people with second or third hand information,or who are just offering an opinion.

Regarding Blair I will say that there's virtually no chance of him agreeing to this, and even if he did it would be very unwise to put me in the same room as him. The man is just starting to try to redeem his reputation in the minds of many of the British public as a compulsive liar and war criminal. There's no way he'll touch this.

Likewise,regarding the journey starting in Leeds - who are the group going to talk to there To explore the possibility of the alleged bombers being set up one would have to talk to the likely agents of influence like Martin McDaid, or the people handling him, or at the very least the people running the surveillance operations such as Warlock and Honeysuckle. Have you secured the co-operation of any of these people?

Fundamentally, what would reassure me is not talking to another person involved in this production, but you putting in writing that I am allowed to run my own camera and telling me who it is the group (including myself) would be talking to. That's the bottom line here, so until I am given firm answers on those two points, I'm not going to agree to participate no matter who from your company talks to me.

So, at this point I'm going to try tomake it easy for you by suggesting further names of people who areactually in positions to speak on the 7/7 investigations rather than simply offer soundbites:

- Dr Andrew Reid, the original coroner, and the forensic pathologists working under him who decided not to carry out full post mortems on the victims of London's most lethal terrorist attack

- Dr Morgan Costello, who was tasked with pronouncing 'life extinct' at three of the bombing sites, but somehow failed to pronounce dead any of the alleged bombers at the scenes

- Colonel Peter Francis Mahoney, who testified at the inquests about the nature of the explosions and the modelling put together in 2010 to asses how the victims had died

- Assistant Chief Constable John David Parkinson of the West Yorkshire Police

- Detective Constable Richard Reynolds of the SO15 Counter-terrorism Command, forensic management team, on the 'bomb factory' up in Leeds, which is the other part of the Leeds story that requires serious examination

If, in the absence of some of the original names I suggested, some of these people can be secured for me to talk to as part of the filming then I am much more likely to agree to this. As to 'an appearance' - I am interested in being as equal a part of the group as anyone else. I do not want to be accorded any kind of special status simply because I probably know more about this than others. This isn't about my ego, it is about furthering the unofficial investigations myself and others have been carrying out for several years. If that aim can be advanced within the confines of this show then great, but I have made my conditions clear so until they are met I do not wish to get any more emails trying to get my personal contact information. You have my email and my Skype.

Regards,
Tom

Tom heard no more and the rest is now BBC broadcasting infamy, thanks to four useful idiots, at least one obvious stooge, an Irish comedian and a few wizz-bang theatrics. Hey presto, here's a documentary for dolts in which the 7/7 narrative is once again unquestioningly delivered verbatim, in spite of all the evidence that directly contradicts its assertions. Tom's response to the BBC can be read here.

7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip – The Take Down

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #1: Davina - The Personalities Don't Fit

A Dr. Russell Razzaque is introduced without a name caption nor even a mention in the programme's credits. Dr Russell, the show claims, is, "A Muslim academic who specialises in the psychology of terrorism".  He spouts some generic psycho-babble invented to create a profile of the new threat to "our [capitalist] way of life" for a few minutes and then uses this as the basis to construct a false profile of four people he's never met and about whom he probably knows less than any of the core J7 research team.

Nice try, must try harder. The methodology though lays out the infantile path along which the rest of the show predictably travels.

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #2: Jon Scobie – Train Time Records Changed On Purpose

That train time records were changed is not really the issue, the point instead being that the train on which the official Home Office narrative placed the accused on 7/7 was cancelled and did not run, meaning that the accused certainly weren't on it.

After J7 forced the government to acknowledge that the 7.40 train to Luton was a fabrication, the alleged train the accused are alleged to have caught to London was changed to the 7.25am train, which happens to be the only other train that morning which might have arrived in London in time for the accused to be on any of the affected underground trains as they left King's Cross.

The aim of this section of the programme was to prove that it is possible to enter Luton station at 7.22am, purchase tickets to London (return tickets in the case of the 7/7 accused, almost as if they had intended to return) and catch a 7.25 train.  In the mockumentary, Andrew 'Impartial' Maxwell began "to fret that they're not going to make it" as if he had some vested interest in the official conspiracy theory being the case. In fact, they failed.  Having been persuaded to be pretend suicide bombers for a day, setting Tony all aquiver, the task of buying tickets and catching a train inside 3 minutes was a stretch too far, and that was without carrying large rucksacks, much less ones full of highly-volatile home-made explosives!

Andrew Maxwell, the comedian and world-renowned international terrorist investigator states confidently, "Mobile phone records show that he [Hasib Hussain] tried unsuccessfully to contact his three fellow bombers." Yet, if all four accused were engaged in a deadly, synchronised suicide mission set for 8.50am and Hasib, as the story would like us to believe, intended to die at that time then calling his co-conspirators some time after the fact seems more than a little odd. Maybe he was planning to meet them in McDonalds, where we now know that the CCTV recording system can be seen being disabled just before Hasib entered the store.

This section of the mockumentary features a short clip of footage from Luton station on the morning of 7 July 2005, but these clips from Luton station on 28 June and 7 July are far more interesting.

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #3: Tony Topping - CCTV Deliberately Missing

Citing Andrew Maxwell once again:

"There is no CCTV evidence after this image in King's Cross train station actually showing them on the tube or the underground platforms."

The last image of the accused on 7/7 was filmed at King's Cross Thameslink which, in 2005, was quite some distance from King's Cross underground station  -- in fact, nowhere near where it is now. This means that there is no visual record of the four accused anywhere on the underground network. Whether the CCTV is missing through cock-up or conspiracy is almost irrelevant (but worthy of further investigation) but the fact stands that there is no visual evidence showing the accused on the London underground, much less the platforms and the trains they are accused of attacking.

This section of the show features an aspiring but failed London mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick.  In 2005 Paddick was the Deputy Assistant Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and was routinely wheeled out to front 7/7 and 21/7 related press conferences.

Would-be mayor Paddick's opening words are, "I don't know" in response to a question about where there is a lack of CCTV footage, where he calmly admits that there is no CCTV of the four suspects on the underground or any bus, and that he has no idea why this might have been.

Sir Ian Blair termed the investigation into the London bombings as the "single biggest criminal inquiry in English history". Obviously the magnitude of the crime and the significance of the investigation wasn't enough for a Deputy Assistant Commissioner to take an interest and avail himself of key aspects of investigation's progress. That aside, Paddick's information reaches the public domain approximately seven years too late, even though it properly belonged in the realms of the Metropolitan Police terror chiefs Andy Hayman (on the phone-hacking News International payroll immediately he stopped being a police person) and Peter Clarke (who flatly refused to reveal whether a key player in the 7/7 story, Mohammed Quayyum Khan (aka 'Q') was on the police or intelligence payroll).

Where was Deputy Assistant Chief Commissioner Brian Paddick in 2005, 2006, 2007 when certain "survivors" (one of whom claimed to have been specifically "asked to take you lot [J7] on") were categorically stating that their inside police contacts had told them that the CCTV really, really, really did exist?

Paddick then diverts the discussion on to "other evidence to place the bombers at the scene in terms of DNA and so forth and identity documents, and that sort of thing."  Paddick must be referring to the identification documents of the accused that were scattered about the carriage some distance from their alleged locations, demonstrating no damage commensurate with having been at the heart of a massive explosion. This unexploded identification documentation conundrum forced even top government scientists testifying at the 7/7 Inquests to admit defeat when it came to explaining the method by which the ID might have been placed where it had.

Maxwell insightfully notes that Paddick fails to persuade anyone of anything, so falls back onto a tried, tested but not very successful method of wheeling out a survivor to state, "We know what happened that day, because we were there, we saw it".  In 7/7 Conspiracy Road trip the survivor in question is Edgware Road survivor, Jacqui Puttnam. Interestingly, Puttnam is introduced not as a "survivor" of the incident, but instead as someone who "witnessed the Edgware Road tube explosion".

Puttnam may well have been there, in a carriage adjacent to the one in which the explosion took place, but in the aftermath, chaos and trauma of an explosion, it's unlikely that Puttnam or anyone else knew anything much about what happened by virtue of having been there.  As is usually the case, such details are filled in after the event by a range of methods, not through some divine insight that arises from merely having the misfortune to have been present.  Remember that the initial story of 7/7 was a power surge and there are several contemporaneous survivor accounts which refer to announcements of such, and survivors who describe having felt the sensation of being electrocuted. 

To understand the invalidity of Puttnam's testimony, it is crucial to examine what she says in detail. She opens with, "I walked past Sidique Khan", as if she could possibly know such a thing with any degree of certainty. Given that there is no footage of any of the accused on the underground, this bit of information may equally be true or false, but Puttnam has no way of knowing definitively. She is, however, seemingly convinced that this is absolutely the case. She continues, "We know who caused it... on my train it was Sidique Khan. They made sure they left enough evidence that it was them, plus they were seen."  This is a reference to the magically scattered ID mentioned by Paddick, the identification documents that didn't show any signs of damage commensurate with having been involved in a massive explosion and conveniently indicted four young men without a trial or any judicial scrutiny. It is fairly safe to infer however that someone certainly wanted it to be the case that there was "left enough evidence that it was them".  Whether or not it was the accused remains to be proven.

Puttnam's testimony becomes even more diluted when she invokes perhaps the most unreliable witness in the 7/7 story, Danny Biddle. Puttnam says, "I've spoken to Danny Biddle who was the worst injured survivor. || Danny saw Sidique Khan reach down and detonate the bomb." This, of course, is patently untrue but it makes for an attention-grabbing story. You can read all about Danny Biddle's many and varied eye-witness accounts here.

As if Puttnam's testimony so far wasn't far-fetched enough, she then enters the world of pure fantasy by continuing, "He [Khan] stood on the platform when I walked past him and looked at me and thought 'You might die today'. He didn't care what kind of person I was, he was gonna do that." Jacqui, Jacqui, you didn't know Mohammed Sidique Khan and you can't pretend to possess the ability to read his thoughts any more you could the thoughts of any other complete stranger.

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #4: Tony Topping – The Bombers Were Duped

This is where the 7/7 Ripple Effect alternative false-hypothesis is presented and features the exercise of security darling, disgraced ex-policeman, Peter Power.

Dr Mohammed Naseem of Birmingham Central Mosque is introduced and, in his usual measured and considered way, intelligently addresses questions directed at him, running rings around presenter Maxwell's devil's advocation techniques.

Not much to lampoon with measured and reasoned responses, which is not the stuff BBC conspiracy mockumentaries are made of, so this section was padded out with some footage of the participants eating while Tony and Layla petulantly bickered over nonsense.

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #5: Layla – The Bombs Were Planted by Someone Else

Introduced here is a bomb expert with a made-up name, Chris Hunter (not unlike Tory Chairman Grant Shapps' made up name, Michael Green). Hunter is "A former army bomb disposal expert and intelligence officer" and "now a counter-terrorism consultant" and was presented as an unbiased expert without even a hint of irony. He looked straight at the camera and nodded a little too feverishly as he said it was ridiculous that elements of the State could have been involved in any degree with 7/7. Being able to look someone in the eye and lie convincingly is a core skill for most intelligence operatives, yet Hunter wasn't particularly convincing as he fluffed his way through the interview.

However, on the subject of 7/7, Hunter was much better as he assessed the damage to the Aldgate train while looking at a photo of the inside of the King's Cross/Russell Square Piccadilly line train.

Cleverly, presenter Andrew Maxwell invokes the magic bouncing blast theory of 7/7 lore to account for the upwards-twisted metal in carriages, but the bomb expert himself only acknowledged Maxwell's words and didn't peddle that line of nonsense of his own accord. It was Maxwell who made a comment about the explosions being so powerful, "so you could suck some floor back up [into the carriage]".

Made-Up-Name Hunter then talks some nonsense about "the fact that there were fragment... there was fragmentation in these devices as well. Basically, you know, bits of metal Sellotaped, or taped to the actual bombs themselves, and those were used to effectively enhance the damage to the, er, the individuals on the, you know, on the carriage itself. || What they do is effectively, if you've just got explosive you get blast damage, as if the blast isn't damaging enough as it is, they actually add nuts and bolts and things, so you get these critical puncture, erm, puncture wounds, effectively."

Nuts and bolts are not an indicator of the power of explosives as Hunter incorrectly asserts, they are entirely separate and unrelated, but thanks for the drive down the intellectual cul-de-sac.

21/7 'bomb', with bolt and washer accessories and
NO EXPLOSIVE PROPERTIES so, technically, not a bomb at all

The description Hunter gives of the 7/7 devices wasn't a description of the devices allegedly used on 7/7 but instead one that accurately describes the so-called 'bomb' found in Wormwood Scrubs and left there by the 21/7 no-bombs 'bomber' and British Army applicant, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu. In fact, the 7/7 Inquests never mentioned any metal taped to the outside of the explosives allegedly used but instead suggested that explosives were wrapped in Mackey's ice-cream bags and surrounded by ice packs to keep them cold.

"Chris (made-up name) Hunter" proudly basking in the glory of doing
security work in the NATO-annihilated Libya, where the majority
of Libyans received no obvious benefit from his 'security' endeavours

In 2012 "Hunter" was selected to be one of 15 Ambassadors for Prime Minister David Cameron’s youth development initiative, the National Citizen Service. As a 'counter-terrorism consultant', and in precisely the same way as the long-time darling of alternative 7/7 narratives, disgraced Peter Power, "Hunter" stands to profit greatly from fanciful, unproven and evidence-free narratives about suicidal asymmetrical threats which manifest themselves out of the blue, even after Nobel Peace Prize winning Obama done went and got that old CIA assett, Osama.

That a man who had pledged his life in service of queen and country, and who personally stands to benefit directly from terrorism and terrorist threats real or imaginary, would happily lend credence to the magical bouncing bomb theory comes as little surprise. Even taking this into account his contribution adds nothing to the collective pool of knowledge about the events of 7/7.

Conspiracy Road Tripping Straw Man #6: Tony Topping – Homemade Bombs Not Powerful Enough

For the grand finale the BBC/Renegade Productions contract the services of Sidney Alford and pull out all the licence-fee stops to blow up a decrepit old bus, allegedly with some sort of home-made explosive conconction.

The bus used in the programme is a different type to that affected on 7/7, having a different seating layout, much older and flimsier internal furniture and only a single set of doors at the front end of the bus. There is a 'Space Chimps 2' advertisement on one side. This suggests the bus had its last passenger use in 2010, unless "Space Chimps" was a subtle reference to the show's participants.

When we first see the bus the lower back-end has been removed. When the bus is blown up this section of the bus is covered over. No mention is made of the preparation undergone by the bus prior to its demise and no explanation for this manipulation of the bus is given either. It appears as though the engine and fuel tank may have been removed, thereby further reducing the overall solidity of the aged bus structure and making for a more spectacular bit of TV viewing. The bus of course as the only above-ground incident on 7/7, thereby providing an iconic visual terror hook that none of the other incidents on the morning could provide.

Decrepit, empty and weakened old bus with the lower-back removed

Decrepit, empty and weakened old bus with the lower-back
opening covered over again as if nothing ever happened.

Sidney Alford is seen with a box of what he refers to as black pepper, saying that a policeman reported smelling pepper at the scene. If this is the case, it's the first time in seven years it has been reported publicly and, furthermore, no organic material was found at any of the crime scenes indicating large quantities of blackpepper. Alford states that the hydrogen peroxide is contained within two bottles with black caps, which can be seen behind the cream coloured washing-up bowl.

Black pepper and water bombs?

We then see Sidney unscrewing the cap off of a bottle with a blue cap and red ring around the neck with what looks like the word 'Water' written on it (the 'W' isn't clear). Due to the editing of the programme it is not clear from which bottle the liquid is poured in with the black pepper, although the red ring around the neck would appear to indicate the water bottle. If hydrogen peroxide was being poured from a bottle marked 'Water' then this would be a dangerous practise. If water is contained in the bottle and is being added to the black pepper then there is no explanation as to what its purpose is. If the liquid is neither hydrogen peroxide nor water, the programme does not indicate what else it might be. No explanation is given for how hydrogen peroxide could be 'boiled' as a method to concentrate it, as is the suggestion for both 7/7 and 21/7. Alford gives no explanation for the detonator that was used in his experiment.

As with 7/7, the nature of the explosives used to blow up the bus are not revealed.

In the closing minutes of 7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip, a last-ditch attempt is made to imbue the programme with some credibility through interviewing a family member of the bereaved. For this, Graham Foulkes is interviewed alongside the 7/7 memorial in Hyde Park. No mention is made of the fact that Graham Foulkes was also a victim of News International phone hacking scandal and that he has also been very vocal in challenging the government and security services for a number of years; with dignity, courage and conviction Foulkes challenges the State again in the programme.

Conclusion

The 7/7 Conspiracy Road Trip finishes with a final interview of Jon Scobie, who says:

"Of course it does not mean, Andrew, that those guys did do it, that does not prosecute those four men. So I do maintain that 7/7 is a justification to continue these wars in the middle-east and continue empire building and to continue British imperialism spreading across the world."

Credit to Mr Scobie for his closing comment as it constitutes the first vaguely political analysis on TV of 7/7 in over 7 years, not just as an isolated incident but as an event that occured not in a vacuum but in a much broader geo-political context. It also acts as an indication of what the programme might have been had the ex-BBC crew at Renegade Pictures actually fulfilled any of the promises they made when soliciting J7's involvement in the programme, instead of shooting fish in a barrell.  Here's how Renegade Productions lied to recruit participants:

This episode we will also aim to address the following greater issues concerning the British government:

• The need for an independent public inquiry.
• The public distrust for the British government - especially Blair.
• Inquiries Act implications.
• Greater point that government suppression of information, feeds conspiracy theories, with potentially dangerous consequences.

While general public distrust of the government featured minorly in the programme, it failed to address the lack of government transparency on the issue of 7/7, or the need for a fully independent public inquiry or the limitations that the Inquiries Act 2005 would impose upon such an inquiry.

In recent times, not long before Francis Fukuyama's now-recanted end of history and the much-vaunted apparent end of ideology, the hidden facets of the State were well known by the common people. It is time now for once common knowledge to become common once again and time for the people to hold to account the State apparatuses; for it is these State apparatuses that exist as the barrier between the criminality and crimes of those operating under cover of the Faustian nexus between State, Secret State and private corporate interests and the meting out of appropriate levels of justice to them by the people who have suffered and continue to suffer the consequences of their actions.

1The only notable exception to this blanket statement being Jon Scobie who, in an interview recorded subsequent to the broadcast, redresses a little the balance of the carefully edited statements of his that made it into the programme. Tony Topping, a "lecturer and researcher" and former "top secret security industry worker", about which he "can't go into too many details of what that was all about" – if the brain meltdown he is shown having during the course of the programme, as if it was the first occasion on which he's encountered notions of time or that train journeys may well consist of finite and measurable proportions there-of – should probably stick to his chosen profession of chasing the lights of distant cars on country lanes and the odd UFO. Davina, a law student and recent convert to Islam would do well to develop the powers of reason and contextualisation prior to entering the law-peddling trade. As for Layla the doe-eyed, eye-lash fluttering, alternative model, actress and article proof-reader, watch the show and make your own minds up about her.

Props: Special thanks to Bridget, Muncher and cmain and the rest of the J7 research team for their invaluable contributions to the content of this article.