Bonfire of the Inanities

A Randomly Exploding Bus

When "Truth" Is Stranger Than Fiction

James Delingpole
Breitbart London

When four Muslim suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London Underground and on buses during the infamous 7/7 atrocities of 2005, 52 people died and more than 700 were injured.

Here is how the BBC chose to commemorate one of those deaths yesterday on Twitter.

Philip Russell, 28, was killed while en route to work on 7 July 2005, when the bus he was on exploded. (BBC Southeast)

A self-exploding bus, eh? Why has nobody warned us before about this terrible threat? We’ve all heard of cases of spontaneous combustion where humans are concerned: Dickens, for example, was obsessed with it, and included someone dying of it in Bleak House. But spontaneously combustible buses? That’s a new one.


The BBC’s tweet got quite a bit of attention, mainly from people who don’t believe in self-exploding buses but who know a mealy-mouthed, evasive, slimy, politically correct, dishonest, issue-ducking, blame-avoiding BBC tweet when they see one. 

Among the 2,000 comments below the BBC’s tweet were:

I hate it when the bus you are on suddenly decides to explode.

NB* The bus DID NOT explode. The rucksack being carried by an Islamic lunatic, high on religious zeal and the power of imaginary fairies exploded on his back.

Not killed, murdered. The bus didn’t just explode, it was bombed. The BBC no longer capable of being truthful.

Ok, so you’ve managed NOT to offend the terrorists who murdered with impunity on 7/7… Now, how about NOT offending everybody else with this hideous headline? Remembering the victims & families of #londonbombings RIP…

Naughty bus was in a bad mood and had a little explosion. Nothing to do with Islamic extremists.

It didn’t explode. The bus had a bomb on it. Always glad to help the national broadcaster.

Largely peaceful explosion

The last comment was, of course, a reference to the BBC’s description of Black Lives Matter riots which resulted in 27 police officers being injured as ‘largely peaceful.’

Two hours later, the BBC was finally shamed into a follow up tweet, identifying the real perpetrator of Philip Russell’s death.

Philip Russell, 28, was killed while en route to work on 7 July 2005, when the bus he was on exploded. . . . Hasib Hussain detonated the bomb on the bus, which killed 13 people. He was one of four suicide bombers who targeted London on 7/7.

Too little, too late. #DefundtheBBC

James Delingpole is the host of the Delingpod. In the latest episode he talks to Calvin Robinson of the #DefundtheBBC campaign about why the BBC is a lost cause.