 |
 |
A Signature of ‘Broken Britain’
Well I certainly didn’t think I’d be writing an article like this about the UMAs but then if you don’t take precautions, you will inevitably attract trouble.
The fact that the organizers are omitting a smokescreen, pretending that the
trouble was nothing to do with the event, at a ceremony with a history of
violence (a woman was shot outside the 2004 Awards in Barbican) is shocking.
The Press area outside for the red-carpet arrival featured
NO security and Press passes (one of which I’m sporting in the below picture) were pathetic black and white pieces of paper
on a safety pin.
When the organizers did let the Press in, we were segregated in an upstairs
chamber with a puny audio feed of the event, what exactly are the organizers
afraid of? TV coverage was hardly mainstream either, with only ITV Local
covering it. To say gaining entrance to a supposedly restricted area was child
’s play would again be putting it lightly as several “revellers” paraded around without passes.
The event itself had no less than FIVE ex Big Brother contestants including George Galloway and Darnell Swallow,
numerous nobodies from the likes of Hollyoaks and Dancing on Ice- and was in
the main a Z-List event. Estelle and Leona Lewis were the
main draws, but yet didn’t even bother to show up, and why should they? Of the stars that did turn up,
all were pleasant, friendly and had generally positive things to say. It
’s artists like these that you feel for.
 |
You Don’t Have to be a Shooter in this Game
Let’s clear one thing up though, there were and no-one saw any firearms, just three
stabbings on the VIP table and a detained crowd. The police were all of course
more concerned about the boxing taking place near by and were slow to react.
Guests were questioned multiple times about the same thing and I can hazard a
guess were not compensated for their missed train fares. Still that
’s the British police for you.
The questions that need to be asked are simply these:
- Why was the event not policed efficiently and how can the organizers expect
stars to attend when their safety is at stake?
- Where exactly were all the police and why did they take so long to arrive at
the scene?
- Why did the police detain journalists who weren’t even in the main event arena?
It’s a shame you can’t even feel safe at an awards ceremony (though not that any of the Press had
anything to worry about) and at one as badly organized as this it
’s no surprise. Urban music will continuously carry around the burden of knife
and gun culture when shambolic events like this further drag all the hard work
of the artists further down into the political mud, which is of course a great
tragedy. I wish the victim well and the others wounded, as we all do. Let
’s just hope they don’t become just another statistic of Britain’s dangerous sub-culture.
CM
(c) ChrisOnline.biz 2008
