New Statesman associate editor Jemima Khan has claimed “London is a very safe city, relatively speaking”, and Britons have more to fear from dog attacks, hot water, and drivers using their mobile phones than terrorism.
Married until recently to cricketer Imran Khan, the left wing journalist was responding to her younger brother, Ben Goldsmith, who remarked that “British people are starting to understand what life is like in Israel, under constant threat of attack, in the middle of the hornets’ nest.”
“[Y]ou’re more likely to be killed by dogs (18 deaths per year), hot water (100 per year) or using your phone while driving (2,920 per year)” the journalist chided.
“And?” her brother replied. “These statistics don’t make these repeated terrorist attacks OK. The Gov’t needs to act.”
In UK, you're more likely to be killed by dogs (average 18 deaths per year) than terrorism (1.4 deaths per year) Fear mongering doesn't help https://t.co/YovUOfUivQ
— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) June 4, 2017
The siblings, children of the late Eurosceptic campaigner Sir James Goldsmith, also clashed on immigration.
“1 in 4 jihadist convictions is a white or black convert to Islam. How does banning immigration help that?” asked Khan.
The younger Goldsmith had asked: “How much blood constitutes a river? And when might we acknowledge that perhaps Enoch Powell had a point on the dangers of mass immigration?” – an allusion to the late Conservative and Ulster Unionist MP’s notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
1 in 4 jihadist convictions is a white or black convert to Islam. How does banning immigration help that? https://t.co/SmkwrUJwfO
— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) June 4, 2017
“Now we are seeing the growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population,” Powell warned in 1968.
“The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, that can so rapidly overcast the sky, has been visible recently in Wolverhampton and has shown signs of spreading quickly … As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.”
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