David Cameron Is Raoul Moat’s Celebrity Supporter: Facebook, Shrines And Pictures

ROAL Moat is dead. We still don’t know if the murderer died before, during or after being shot by pump-action Tasers. But there are more important things at stake. In the House of Commons, David Cameron is talking about Facebook group on which people left messages of sympathy for the gunman.

Moat’s death was played out in the media, an orchestrated spectacle. And now his post-death is there for all to see, too. The media – social and mainstream – learnt to love Raoul Moat.

For those of you not yet aware of the Facebook page, it’s called “RIP Raoul Moat You Legend”. Anyone can join so long as you are mentally and physically able to click a button. Unarmed PC David Rathband, whom Moat shot in the face with no warning, might not manage it. But other armchair warriors can give it a whirl.

Anyhow, the Prime Minister, a man overseeing the country embroiled in two foreign wars, has told an official to get Facebook on the web and convey his upset. Dave is so upset that he’d not yet detailed his wonk to tell Facebook how upset he is when he told everyone else.

A spokeswoman for Facebook says that “those who think he is a hero are entitled to their opinion”.

Quite so. You can think what you like.

But here’s Dave at Prime Minister’s Question Time, grandstanding:

“It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story.”

So. Move on. Or not:

“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.”

If you want to burnish Moat’s celebrity, encourage the police to look deceptive and then invite the Prime Minister to slam him in public. Look at Raoul Moat, the no-mark with the gun who became a star. Thanks, Dave. Paul Gascoigne has been trumped as Raoul Moat’s top showbiz pal.

The Shine In Pictures (article continues after them)

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Tributes left at Riverside park, Rothbury, Northumberland. Raoul Moat took his own life during a six-hour stand off with police in Rothbury on Friday.

Oh, and if you ant to blame anyone, blame the chavs, the Jeremy Kyle fodder and the great unwashed. The Mail does. The Mail can identify the Moatites by their pseudonyms and comments alone and tell you what they are worth:

Comments on the Facebook site expose the appalling opinions of Britain’s underclass.

We hear the words of Jamie Sullivan, who you might know as the head trader at a big City bank, the captain of the Varsity rowing squad or a minor royal. Says he:

“He got pushed to the edge by a lying scummy girlfriend who told him she was shagging a copper: she tried to wind him up and it worked quite well.”

So says the toff. But what of the foreign Moatites. Can the Mail find one?

Maja Brodowski, 32, who teaches at a Polish school in Berwick, visited the scene where Moat was killed to place a floral tribute. She said: ‘It was a tragic end, very sad – not just for the victims but for Moat as well,’ she said.

‘He was clearly a very emotional man who didn’t know how to deal or express those deep feelings and things rapidly got out of hand. It is so very sad.’

Well, yes. He might not bear analysing but people will indulge. Sometimes people talk about people they never met and knew nothing about in opinion pieces for national newspapers.