Nadine Dorries has passed comment on social media and the recent civil unrest. It’s an interesting topic, and one that could be debated for many hours. However, keeping to form, she bases her arguments on untruths and presents opinion as fact.
Her statement:
During 7/7, mobile networks were instantly closed down.
Is false.
The 7 July Review Committee in their report stated:
We subsequently found out that in fact ACCOLC had been activated, by the City of London Police, on the O2 network in a 1km area around Aldgate Station
ACCOLC, according to wikipedia is:
ACCOLC (Access Overload Control) is a procedure in the United Kingdom for restricting mobile telephone usage in the event of emergencies. It is similar to the GTPS (Government Telephone Preference Scheme) for landlines.
This scheme allows the mobile telephone networks to restrict access in a specific area to registered numbers only and is normally invoked by the Police Incident Commander (although it can be invoked by the Cabinet Office). The emergency services are responsible for registering their key numbers in advance.
Also in that report:
The O2 network was closed … at about noon, and remained closed until 4:45pm
That is neither instant (the first bomb was at approx 0850) or across more than one network, or in anything but a very small area.
Also, evidence given at the inquest (yes, this is protectively marked restricted and is on a gov.uk website):
