Cameron condemns sympathy for "callous murderer" Raoul Moat

Generally, I think there are few big stories that don't have some political angle to them.

Take some of the momentous stories that have hit the region over the last few months.

The West Cumbrian floods stimulated a debate about how much investment has been put in to prepare for extreme weather.

I had to get clarification on the laws about seatbelts when the school bus crashed near Keswick.

And of course the murder of 12 people by Derrick Bird reopened the debate on gun laws.

But up to now I have struggled to think of too much that was political about the Raoul Moat case.

There are investigations into the conduct of the police which might turn into public policy issues, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission will probably need to report back before any debate begins in earnest.

You can though always depend on Prime Minister's Questions for making almost any issue political.

And indeed the Raoul Moat saga did get raised in PMQs today.

David Cameron was pressed into commenting on the case by the Conservative MP for Daventry, Chris Heaton-Harris.

His intervention follows the placing of dozens of bouquets both outside Moat's Newcastle home and at the riverside in Rothbury where he shot himself.

But Mr Heaton-Harris was most concerned with the Facebook webpage of the "RIP Raoul Moat You Legend" group.

Now, I confess I had a look at this today, and it is a rather bizarre mix of people paying tribute to Mr Moat, and even more disturbingly some who would have liked to see him kill more police (or polis as many of them spell it).

I can't quite make my mind up how many of those posting are being "ironic" and how many are actually sincere in their support for Raoul Moat's war against the police.

The page says more than 28,000 people like it, though some people seem to have joined that list to condemn some of the comments supporting Raoul Moat, and to ask for the page to be shut down.

Chris Heaton-Harris wants the PM to get Facebook to take the page down.

In reply, as you'd expect, David Cameron's made it clear his sympathies rest entirely with Raoul Moat's victims.

He said the Daventry MP had raised a "very good point", and that there should be no public sympathy for the gunman.

He said: "It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story.

"I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community. There should be no sympathy for him."

Of course, though this does show the limitation of what politicians can do in this age of the web.

Even if David Cameron does contact Facebook, he has no power to force a web provider to take a page down.

And even if Facebook does block the page, there's nothing to stop anyone setting up a replacement just as quickly.

So even if this story has taken a political turn today, there doesn't seem to be much at the moment that politicians can do about it other than join the debate with the rest of us.

----

Update at 4:30pm - The Prime Minister's official spokesman has said that the PM's condemnation of the Facebook page devoted to the gunman Raoul Moat will be expressed to the organisation at an official level.

Let's see what happens next!

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