Sat, Sep 16, 2017 Updates on London Tube Attacker
updated at 17:10 Z
Summary
- Armed police operation under way in Sunbury, Surrey; police evacuate local area.
- Police arrest an 18-year-old man in connection with Parsons Green Tube bomb.
- He was held by Kent Police in the port area of Dover.
- London 'will not stop' after attack, Met Police chief says.
- UK terror threat level is raised to 'critical' - meaning an attack is expected 'imminently'.
- The number of people injured now stands at 30, police say.
- Parsons Green station reopened in the early hours of Saturday.
Live Reporting by Claire Heald, Dearbail Jordan, and Jennifer Scott. All times stated are UK.
17:10 Bomb suspect being moved to London
Our correspondent Frank Gardner tweets:
Not there yet, still at Critical as investigation continues. Suspect in custody being moved from Kent to London.
17:09 Abbott: You can't keep people safe on the cheap
Channel 4
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott says that it is not possible to protect people on the cheap.
Echoing earlier comments by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about government cuts, Ms Abbott told Channel 4 News: "You cannot keep people safe on the cheap and the mayor is having to make £400m worth of cuts to the Metropolitan Police."
Challenged about a near 20,000 fall in police numbers since 2010, Conservative MP Keith Prince said those were national, not London, figures and when now Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was the capital's mayor "he kept the number of police at 32,000".
He added: "It is only since Mr Khan has been mayor that that figure has been cut and he took £32m out of the budget to cut the police down to 31,000."
16:39 Locals cannot return home 'for hours'
Residents in the Cavendish Road area of Sunbury-on-Thames have been told by police they must wait "at least a few hours" before they can return to their homes.
Neighbouring Burgoyne Road has been closed and a police helicopter is circling overhead, PA says.
16:38 Helicopter footage shows Sunbury cordon
16:11 Residents watch raid from windows
Nearby Sunbury resident Anna Wilkins says she saw armed police with balaclavas surround a house that backs on to hers.
Police told us to go in the house and shut the doors. I went up to the bedroom with my partner and two children watching the proceedings from the window.
Minutes later they told us to evacuate and asked all of us to go to Staines rugby club.
16:11 Rugby club takes in 200 evacuated residents
Around 200 residents from the Cavendish Road area in Sunbury-on-Thames have been evacuated to the Staines Rugby Football Club.
Its finance director Dan Norcott tells the BBC that the police contacted the club earlier on Saturday to see if it could take in people.
He says: "We have laid on refreshments and everyone has full use of our facilities."
Mr Norcott says the club has been asked by the police to stay open into the evening, adding that the local council is making preliminary arrangements for hotel accommodation if needed.
Commenting on how residents are holding up, he said: "The younger people are more relaxed but the older people are shaken up."
16:09 Residents evacuated as cordon set up
People were evacuated by the police during the Sunbury raid and have stayed outside a 100 metre cordon.
This photo was captured by Anar Allidina Dale.
15:59 Rudd: 'We will learn from these incidents'
Home Secretary Amber Rudd says it was good fortune that the bomb did so little damage
15:52 Mum of three given one minute to evacuate home
A mother of three living on Cavendish Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, has described being given "one minute" to leave her home as police evacuated residences close to a house being searched.
Mojgan Jamali tells the Press Association:
I was in my house with my children and there was a knock at the door from the police. They told me to leave.
They said: 'You have one minute to get out of the house and get away.' I just got out, I got my three children and we left the house and the street."
15:50 Armed police on Sunbury streets
Local residents have been sharing their pictures of the police raid on Sunbury's streets.
Here, Brenda Matthews-Green could see armed police on the road behind neighbouring houses.
15:46 No doubt this was a serious IED, says Rudd
Home Secretary Amber Rudd reiterated that the arrest of a teenager in connection with Friday's Tube bombing was "very significant".
It was "too early to say", she added, if the individual was previously known to police, adding that the investigation was ongoing.
Commenting on the bomb, Ms Rudd said: "There is no doubt that this was a serious IED. It was lucky that it did little damage."
15:40 Residents evacuated to rugby club
One local resident near the evacuated area in Sunbury said about 100-150 residents had congregated at nearby Staines rugby club.
15:40 Bomb suspect to be moved up to London
Following a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee Home Secretary Amber Rudd says that the police are making "good progress".
She says the 18-year old arrested in connection with the Parsons Green bombing will be moved from Kent up to London later today.
15:14 Met Commissioner: 'London is carrying on'
Cressida Dick advises Londoners to stay vigilant
15:10 Three injured remain in hospital
Three people remain in hospital following the Tube bombing on Friday, NHS England says.
They are being treated at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
A total of 30 people were injured following the incident.
14:58 Residents evacuated from Sunbury homes
More information has come in about the armed police operation in Sunbury...
A house has been evacuated and officers are searching it in connection with the Tube bombing at Parsons Green.
The evacuation started at 13:40 BST, with residents in the Cavendish Road area of Sunbury-on-Thame also being removed as a "precautionary measure".
A cordon has been put in place 100 metres around the property whilst both the Met and Surrey Police carry out the search.
No further arrests have been made.
14:51 BREAKING Man arrested 'suspected of planting bomb'
It's understood the man arrested at Dover is suspected of planting the #parsonsgreen device.
14:49 Rudd: Arrest is very significant
Home Secretary Amber Rudd says the arrest of an 18-year-old man in connection with the Parsons Green terror attack is "very significant".
She tells the Press Association: "The operation is ongoing."
14:47 'Unusual' to find bomb intact
Image link of burning bucket bomb
It is "quite unusual" for a device to be found intact and it means investigators may be able to find evidence such as fibres and DNA, says David Videcette, a former counter-terrorism detective in the Metropolitan Police.
There has been some speculation that the bomb, contained in a bucket and carried in a Lidl freezer bag, was unfinished and was being transported.
Mr Videcette thinks it is incorrect to say that the bomb was unfinished, adding that it was similar in terms of the materials used to the device in the 7 July 2005 terror attack.
14:42 BREAKING Armed police at house in Surrey
Armed police are carrying out an operation at an address in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, related to the Parsons Green bombing, BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw says.
14:37 Terror threat 'to come down soon'
Tweet from Frank Gardner, BBC News Security Correspondent:
V positive progress being made in #ParsonsGreen bomb investigation. Expect Natl Terror Threat Level to come down off Critical soon.
14:35 Armed police at house in Berkshire
Tweet by Danny Shaw, BBC News Home Affairs Correspondent:
Armed police are at an address at Sunbury in Berkshire. It's understood to be related to the investigation into #parsonsgreen attack.
14:26 Home Secretary to provide update
Home Secretary Amber Rudd will provide an update following a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee, our political correspondent Leila Nathoo reports from Whitehall.
The meeting lasted around 45 minutes and is the second held since yesterday morning's bomb at Parsons Green station.
14:23 Police 'pleased' with investigation progress
Police investigating the Parsons Green bombing have good CCTV images and are "pleased" with the progress of the investigation, BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Daniel Sandford says.
Police have arrested an 18 year-old man in connection with the South West London attack.
He says police believe that the bomb is linked to Islamist terrorism.
14:10 Transport 'will never be 100% safe'
The Times
Writing in The Times, crime and security editor Fiona Hamilton says that the Tube bombing at Parsons Green station is an important reminder of how vulnerable the transport network is.
While security has been improved since the 7 July in 2005, "a network with huge numbers of passengers can never be made 100% safe".
14:10 'Terrorist incompetence is saving lives'
The Guardian
The Guardian suggests the incompetence of terrorists has spared hundreds of lives in recent years.
Before the improvised explosive device that failed to detonate fully on the tube train at Parsons Green, there have been many other bungled attempts to kill or maim people - including a world-be suicide bomber who set off his own device in a toilet.
Eliminating key individuals with high levels of expertise will help stop knowledge of destruction passing to potential attackers, the paper says.
14:04 Security alert at Woolwich Arsenal
Tweet from Docklands Light Railway:
No service btwn King George V and Woolwich Arsenal only, while we respond to a security alert at Woolwich Arsenal. https://t.co/LpOc5GL6pb
13:52 Met officers 'working on days off'
Tweet from the The Metropolitan Police Federation:
A reminder that there are no "extra" #police officers to call on. Only same ones working longer shifts and having their days off cancelled.
13:44 British Transport Police armed patrols
Tweet from the British Transport Police:
Extra firearms officers have been patrolling stations today. @ACCRobinSmith has been meeting some of those on duty at Euston #WeAreBTP
13:40 Met Commissioner: 'London will not stop'
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has joined police officers on the streets of London to highlight the increased visible presence in the capital.
She went by Tube to Waterloo Station and patrolled along the South Bank with colleagues.
"Yesterday we saw a cowardly and indiscriminate attack which could have resulted in many lives being lost," said the commissioner.
"Again we saw a quick response from all the emergency services and transport staff.
"Since then, we have had teams of detectives and specialists working through the night on the investigation and officers throughout London mobilising and providing an increased visible police presence - especially in crowded places.
"London has not stopped after other terrible attacks and it will not stop after this one."
She added: "It is a simple message, but a powerful one, to see London getting on with its business enjoying the weekend and everything the city has to offer.
"You can help us by remaining vigilant and letting us know if you have any concerns."
13:30 'Self-starter cells' offer little comfort
BBC News Channel
Independent defence analyst Andy Oppenheimer told BBC News that experts were no longer calling people carrying out these attacks "lone wolves", but now referring to them as "self-starter cells".
But he said there was little solace in the amateur nature of the incident.
"I don't think we can take too much comfort because there is so much going on that is very random, such as learning from the internet, which may produce faulty recipes for bomb making," he said.
"If they are self-starting and they are learning as they go along, there will be more botched attempts, but that doesn't mean people won't get hurt by them because devices are so volatile.
"They may be teaching themselves, they maybe passing on bits of information... it is not full training in the way the IRA did. But they can teach each other and they can be trained as they do learn quickly, even when they are doing it in a random way."
With JavaScript enabled, the live blog page is "okay" with load speed over a fast internet connection, but the page is still too bloated and too cluttered, in my opinion.
With JavaScript disabled, images and embedded social media posts do not display.
I tried to create a hybrid with this page. No JavaScript. All text displayed, regardless of origin. At least links to the images. If images get embedded, small images should be used with links to the large versions.
With JavaScript enabled, the BBC displays a video carousal at the top of the page. In my opinion, the list of videos should be displayed on a separate page, or instead of embedding the videos or the images of the videos, simply display a text title links for the videos.
The page should be kept lightweight. Offload videos and most images to separate pages.
The videos displayed within the live blog posts have a permalink within the page, but they do not have their own separate pages.
The BBC page also shows Flash-based or JavaScript-based advertisements. If ads are needed, why not display simple text-based ads or ads with small-ish images with the ad display requiring no JavaScript like my example here:
http://wren.soupmode.com/advertising-with-an-embedded-instagram-image.html
webpagetest.org results
www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-41292230
From: Dulles, VA - Thinkpad T430 - Chrome - Cable
9/16/2017, 12:18:43 PM
First View Fully Loaded:
Time = 13.487 seconds
Requests = 163
Bytes downloaded = 2,470 KB
20% of the downloaded bytes or approx 484 KB was due to image. That's not too shabby, considering all that's embedded within the page.
Unfortunately, 41.8% of the downloaded bytes was due to 1 mb of JavaScript, which is unacceptable, in my opinion, for a breaking news live blog page. It's bad enough that normal news pages contain that bilge, but live blog pages should be as lightweight as possible. They should be able to load for user with slow cell phone connections and older CPUs. That's not the case for this BBC live blog page. Failure.
28.2% of the downloaded bytes or 683 kb was due to HTML, which seems unusually high. It's odd that the image download is smaller than the HML download. It must have something to do with the bloated web design for the page.
Bottom line is that the BBC live blog page requires readers to download 2.4 megabytes of cruftware to read simple text and to view simple images that could be links to the image files or separate pages.
Small, lightweight, fast, and focused, that's how a live blog page should be created, in my opinion.
I do like the small-ish, focused, frequent posts that the BBC makes.
If a long post is required, the text could be placed in its own separate article, and a link to this other article could be dropped into the live blog. If users do not want to click links to videos, images, and longer articles, then that's the users' problems. Eliminating links and bloating the live blog page to keep things together is a bad alternative. The web was and is about linking.
I don't have all of the posts from the BBC live blog page included in my version above, but if I did, my version would still be considerably smaller and faster than the BBC version.
webpagetest.org results
wren.soupmode.com/2017/09/16/test-bbc-live-blog.html
From: Dulles, VA - Thinkpad T430 - Chrome - Cable
9/16/2017, 12:40:23 PM
First View Fully Loaded:
Time = 0.632 seconds
Request = 2
Bytes downloaded = 12 KB
100% of the downloaded bytes went to HTML.
I'm not opposed to embedding small to mid-sized images within a live blog page. I would say an image should have a max width of 640 pixels. If a larger image would be helpful, such as with a map, then a link should be provided to the large image.
I need to display the permalinks for each small post within my live blog. Since I'm using h4 headers to mark the start of each post, my code generates the internal links for each header section. I could display the links at the top of the page by setting the table of contents command to yes within my markup here, but I don't want to clutter the page with a TOC area. It would be better to show the links for each header section.
On the BBC live blog page, no permalinks exist when JavaScript is disabled.
When JavaScript is enabled for the BBC live blog, share buttons appear for each post. Facebook, Twitter, and "share", which provides access to the internal link for the section. Frigging whacked and anti-web.
What's so difficult about displaying simple, old-fashioned HTML anchor tag links that have existed since the web began around 1990? This is my biggest gripe with axios.com. Asinine design that's hostile to readers.