Posted on 05/23/2013 2:11:53 PM PDT by rickmichaels
LONDON - A middle-aged cub scout mistress who gave two bloodied knifemen a stern talking to as a British soldier lay dead on the street was hailed as a hero for embodying the “spirit of London”.
And as some in the capital complained about immigrants after a killing blamed on British Muslim converts with Nigerian roots, it turned out the woman held up as the new face of civic pride in Europe’s multi-ethnic metropolis was herself born in France.
Named by the prime minister from the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, said her bus was halted by the incident on Wednesday. She got off to offer first aid to the man lying in the street and found herself confronted by his killer, still wielding a bloody knife and a meat cleaver.
“I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal. I could speak to him and he wanted to speak and that’s what we did,” the former teacher from southwest England told the Guardian.
Film of Londoners calmly standing by, going about their business, tending to the victim or - in the case of Loyau-Kennett - remonstrating with the killers, captured imaginations of a city steeped in a stoical self-image of the World War Two “spirit of the Blitz” and numerous guerrilla attacks since.
“That’s the spirit of London,” declared the mayor, Boris Johnson.
In fact, like many among the city’s eight million people, Loyau-Kennett was only passing through, visiting her children as she returned from a holiday in France to her home in rural Cornwall, where she helps run a Cub Scout pack for boys aged 8 to 10.
Looking relaxed and playing down her heroics in an interview on national breakfast television, she told ITV her main thought had been to keep the men talking until police could get to the scene, near Woolwich army barracks in southeast London:
“I wanted him to concentrate on me and make sure he doesn’t have a funny idea,” she said in French-accented English. Her son, who helped make her a star by tweeting her name after pictures appeared in the media of her talking to the suspect, told Reuters she moved to Britain as a young woman.
“I had taken a 53 bus to get to Parliament Square, where I was going to meet my children and walk to Victoria coach station before getting the coach to Helston in Cornwall,” she told the Guardian. “I was sitting on the lower deck and the bus stopped. I could clearly see a body in the road and a crashed car.
”I trained as a first aider ... so I asked someone to watch my bag and then got off to see if I could help.“
What she found was an apparently lifeless man and two others with weapons: ”I thought, okay,“ she said.
”I could see a butcher’s knife and an axe - that’s what he had - and blood. I thought, what the heck? I thought obviously he was a bit excited and the thing was just to talk to him.“
Prime Minister David Cameron picked up on her response when one of the men told her their aim was to ”start a war“ in London: ”She replied ’You’re going to lose. It’s only you versus many’,“ Cameron said.
”She spoke for us all.“
Screw that! That may be the “Spirit of London,” but the “Spirit of Texas” would have been five .45 LC rounds between the eyes.
“Spirit of London” sounds like “Boston Strong” a B.S. way of pacifying residents after Muslim atrocities.
I find the $ sign on the poster hilarious...
Somebody could have come up with a pound sterling symbol for that with very little effort.
Actually, the spirit of London is better personified in the murderer, since this scum is pushing out the native population and taking over. Londonistan on the rise.
A whopping berating!
Wait until they pull out the big guns and start calling terrorists names!
Nah; that would be bullying.
The “Spirit of London” is to put the killers on welfare and to aapologize to them for the inconvenience
I listened to her accent. She is not British—at least by birth.
Bingo. And this woman wasn’t courageous, she was naive about the danger before her. Some people ignore guns when they are pointed at them because of ‘normalcy bias’.
“I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal”.
I got news for you lady. He wasn’t drunk or on drugs 5 minutes earlier when he chopped the guy to pieces.
Amen!! Preach it brother!
Good for her for having the guts to confront the guy.
Too bad she’ll probably be convicted of hate speech, while the two perps are found not guilty by some British judge by reasons pertaining to Sharia law.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
British soldiers will now be given training in Berating tactics.
BINGO!
I'd prefer more of the spirit the EDL showed with taking to the streets and vocally calling for something to be done about Muslim immigration.
2nd line in the article. She was born in France.
Shanking head....
AMEN. I am sick to death of the p*ssified response to these murdering demons. All the left wing media sh*ts should be swinging from lampposts.
I like that the police shot them.
I saw a pic of some gal with her hands in her pockets standing in front of an insane man covered in blood.
I would say she is not very street smart and she is lucky that he did not lope off her neck
Another nominee for "MSM Non-Sequitur of the Year" - as the attempts to denigrate Western Civilization reach new lows.
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