The difference is that attacks like these targeted infrastructure (from what I can see this attack didn’t have any casualties?) whereas what happened at the arena was an attack solely designed to kill children. I think we can agree that there is a gulf between groups like the IRA and Islamists.(Although neither I support or condone in any way)
The 1996 Manchester bomb was targeted at a city centre with absolutely no certainty that all present could be evacuated in time to prevent mass slaughter. Members of Morrissey's family could have been shopping at the time.
There was supposed to be a warning from the IRA before the Omagh bombing but 'something went wrong'...
'Telephoned warnings which did not specify the actual location had been sent almost forty minutes beforehand but police inadvertently moved people toward the bomb.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing
Only the credulous would minimise the gravity of this attack by reference to the fact IRA terrorists in Manchester managed to communicate a warning and the emergency services managed to evacuate tens of thousands of Mancunians.
You wrote:
'
what happened at the arena was an attack solely designed to kill children. I think we can agree that there is a gulf between groups like the IRA and Islamists.'
Given Omagh and the slaughter of teenagers in the Birmingham Pub Bombings of 1974 I do not accept any meaningful moral difference between the terrorists of the IRA (and UDF) and Islamists. But perhaps Morrissey would agree with you on this given his shameless publicity seeking comment on the Brighton Bombing of 1984:
'The sorrow of the IRA Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed.'
It intrigues me how David Vance, as a Unionist, is content to expediently ignore this grotesque trolling of a UK terror attack by Morrissey. I'd also be interested in hearing David Vance's views on Morrissey's equally tendentious 'terror trolling' of the Oslo terrorist attack by Breivik.
“We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown, with 97 [sic] dead. Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried shit every day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jul/28/morrissey-norway-attacks-mcdonalds-kfc
Therefore it is both illogical and immoral to afford any credibility whatsoever to Morrissey's supposed 'anger' with regard to the Manchester Arena bombing unless we accept the startling proposition that the slaughter of children in Oslo is 'nothing' compared to the deaths of chickens bred for fast-food restaurants and requires no response beyond a flippant remark onstage; yet the slaughter of children in Manchester requires commemoration in mawkish lyrics, maudlin song and a 'terror trolling' album title.
One could perhaps speculate that the decisions of Miley Cyrus and Capitol Records to quarantine this moral monstrosity
may have been in response to private and public protests from other artists, appalled at the nerve of Morrissey to even attempt this transparently insincere eulogy.
Or, who knows, maybe a member of Morrissey's audience with access to Miley Cyrus lit the blue touchpaper by alerting her to the facts of Morrissey's 'terror trolling' and thus forced Capitol Records to make a strategic decision to protect both her and their reputation brand going forward...
It took a long time for the 'clueless consumers' to reject Morrissey due to their 'sunk investment' in his supposed 'genius' but he finally pushed it too far.
'Bonfire Of Teenagers', when finally released or leaked, will act as a fitting epitaph: not for the slain children and adults of the Manchester Arena bombing but for the career prospects, and most importantly, will result in the posthumous reputational evisceration of this deeply silly C-list crank-fraud 'pop singer'.
He will remain angry till the day he dies. Not about the Manchester Arena bombing but engulfed by anger at the fact that his previously supine audience finally found him insufferable and simply stopped listening or caring about his nonsense..
Kind regards
BrummieBoy