Veteran Tory MP Bob Stewart was convicted last week of committing a “racially aggravated public-order offence” during an altercation with a heckler on the street. The trouble is, says Fraser Myers in Spiked, “anyone who has seen the footage of the incident will see that this is not the sinister act of racist abuse that it has been portrayed as”.
A video, taken by Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei from the U.K.-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, shows Alwadaei confronting Stewart outside the Foreign Office’s Leicester House. Alwadaei can be heard, off-camera, accusing Stewart of “selling” himself to Bahrain (Stewart had just left an event organised by the Bahraini embassy and had previously enjoyed an expenses-paid trip courtesy of the Bahrain government). A flustered Stewart then responds with a few jibes.
“Go away. I hate you. You make a lot of fuss,” an indignant Stewart says to his heckler. He also calls Alwadaei a “stupid man” and tells him to “shut up” and to “get stuffed”. “You are stupid!”, Alwadaei hits back. So far, so childish. Then, Stewart can just about be heard telling Alwadaei to “Go back to Bahrain”. This single off-the-cuff comment is what turned this otherwise banal altercation between an MP and a protester into a police matter.
Last week, Westminster Magistrates’ Court decided, after a one-day trial, that Stewart’s comments demonstrated “racial hostility likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to those present at the time”. Stewart has now surrendered the Tory whip while he considers appealing the conviction.
When quoted in a news report, shorn of any context, the words Stewart used certainly look dodgy. But the footage makes clear that this was just an argument that got out of hand. Stewart was clearly responding in the heat of the moment, as he tried to dodge Alwadaei’s questions and heckles. He wasn’t harassing or intimidating him. And while he certainly chose his words poorly, it hardly seems fair to damn him as a racist hate criminal on the basis of one thoughtless insult alone.
Anyone reading the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) press release about the case would think Stewart had organised a KKK rally. “Hatred of any kind has no place in society… the CPS will not hesitate to prosecute those who perpetrate hate crimes,” says Claire Walsh, the Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor. Stewart’s fine was even increased from £400 to £600 because of “the seriousness of the hate crime he committed”.
The fact that prosecutors ever considered this spat to be a serious offence demonstrates, all too clearly, why they must never have the right to police our speech. It shows that ‘hate’ is an entirely subjective accusation. And it shows that what constitutes a hate crime is determined not by any objective criteria, but by the sensitivities and political biases of those working for the state.
Myers adds that last month, the same Metropolitan Police decided “that there was nothing untoward about a group of Islamists chanting ‘jihad’ on the streets of London. Nor do they seem to think that activists calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel are hate criminals”.
Worth reading in full.
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There was no pandemic.
There was a pLandemic.
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What are the numbers for Belarus?
I just checked now. According to the same source, Our World in Data, Belarus (who largely ignored the pandemic and eschewed lockdowns) lost about two years of life expectancy, compared to four years in Russia (who was quite strict at first, though later less strict than the world average, and created their very own jabs). And another source actually says that they gained a fraction of a year.
Also, Nicaragua (who also largely ignored the pandemic) and Tanzania (ditto) either largely broke even in terms of life expectancy after a brief hit in 2020 (Nicaragua) or saw a small drop of less than a year (Tanzania). And Brazil didn’t do great, but fared better than their stricter neighbor Peru. Before the pandemic, Peruvians actually lived a bit longer than Brazilians, and now, the reverse is true.
And of course, Sweden largely broke even from 2019 to 2021 after a brief hit in 2020, and even gained a bit from 2018 to 2021.
There was no pandemic in the county where I live. FOI requests to local crematoriums and cemeteries proved that. Yet the council commissioned a permanent monument to the victims of the ‘pandemic’ which has been erected next to the town’s war memorial. I find it grotesque.
Joining in to shout something I and many others have been shouting since the start:
THERE WAS NO PANDEMIC!
Seconded.
The USA lost nearly two years of life expectancy from 2019 to 2021. Free Florida lost 1.5 years, while New York lost 3 years, twice as bad:
https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/floridians-life-expectancy-drops-by-1-5-years-according-to-cdc/
And California? They also lost 3 years. Of course, we know that China’s *other* weapon of mass destruction, fentanyl, also contributed mightily to this trend, especially in San Fransicko.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2794146?guestAccessKey=acd69ea5-6be4-4e56-9486-17878426d1b9&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=070722
So much for lockdowns, masks, and NPIs saving lives, right?
EDIT: The first link should read “from 2019 to 2020”, not 2021, as not all data are updated yet for every state.
There was no pandemic.
We must avoid using the language of the enemy, chosen to distort.
Covid is unexceptional.
India has a young population, but massive conurbations, pollution.
South Africa has high density townships.
The common cold targets the elderly, particularly those with a history of respiratory infections, comorbidities.
Japan has a high quality Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination program, the principal element of tuberculosis control in Japan.
‘This randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial shows that multi-dose BCG vaccination is safe and prevents COVID-19 with an efficacy of 92%–100% (depending on case definition) relative to placebo.’
‘This clinical trial has several strengths.’
‘…the subjects are from the United States. This is important because all subjects, prior to enrollment, were confirmed by diagnostics and by history to be unexposed to tuberculosis and lacking prior BCG vaccinations. The United States has never had a country policy of neonatal BCG vaccinations.’
‘…..our trial uses a very potent strain of BCG, Tokyo-172. BCG strain differences for other off-target indications are important, and this strain of BCG exhibits some of the highest in vitro potency and is highly immunogenic.’
‘….it is now appreciated that Japan, as a country with mandatory BCG vaccines and as one of the oldest populations in the world, has remarkable resistance to COVID-19’
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666379122002713
‘Our findings suggest that routine infant BCG vaccination coverage in young generation had a significant impact on prevention of local COVID-19 spread in Japan.’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7419263/
BCG vaccination has limitations, taking a while to provide protection, but if the government wants to protect future population against further viruses, avoid the stupidity of lockdown, a new BCG vaccination program for all infants and the so far non BCG vaccinated could very well be the way to go, using Tokyo-172.