- “‘It’s about time’ – Bates hails move to quash postmasters’ convictions” – Alan Bates said that it was “about time” as his 21-year campaign for justice won a historic victory that will lead to hundreds of postmasters’ convictions being quashed, reports the Times.
- “Post Office paid out bonuses for every conviction under Horizon scandal” – It has emerged that Post Office investigators were offered cash bonuses for every sub-postmaster convicted during the Horizon scandal, according to the Telegraph.
- “Ex-Post Office chief Paula Vennells nearly became Bishop of London” – Disgraced former Post Office Chief Executive Paula Vennells narrowly missed out on becoming the Bishop of London, reports the Mail. She was the favoured candidate of Justin Welby.
- “Sir Keir Starmer was in charge of the CPS when sub-postmasters were taken to court” – Sub-postmasters were taken to court by the Crown Prosecution Service during Sir Keir Starmer’s time as its head, according to the Sun.
- “Calls for Davey to resign ramp up while Lib Dems paint him as a victim” – Ex-postmistress Sally Stringer has called for Ed Davey to resign over his role in the Post Office scandal, while the Lib Dems have been sending out emails painting Davey as a victim, says Guido Fawkes.
- “Postmistress plots election challenge to Sir Ed Davey amid anger at his role in Post Office scandal” – Ed Davey is facing an election challenge from a former postmistress amid warnings that his role in the Post Office scandal will cost him votes, reports the Telegraph.
- “‘Trial by media’ saved the sub-postmasters. Ministers should know better than to attack the press” – We have ended up with the media in control of the Horizon story because the criminal justice system failed so spectacularly, says Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
- “JN.1: Major dominant Covid variant since XBB.1.5 – what you need to know” – JN.1, the latest COVID-19 variant, has rapidly spread across the U.S., with the variant reportedly accounting for over 60% of all cases, reports the Epoch Times.
- “Covid hasn’t gone away so where’s the plan?” – Mainland Europe is taking the threat of the Juno variant seriously, but Rishi Sunak is sticking his fingers in his ears, writes Alice Thomson in a typically hysterical piece in the Times.
- “Keep calm and resist ‘muzzle mania’ over face masks” – The evidence-light campaign to get us all to go about with soggy pieces of cloth on our faces is back, laments Peter Hitchens in the Mail.
- “Covid jab gave me ruinous side effects, but Facebook is censoring me” – A woman who says she suffered chronic health complications after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, claims to have been censored from sharing her story on Facebook, reports the Mail.
- “Controversial zoologist is gathering pathogens with pandemic potential” – A British zoologist says he’s found a close relative of the Covid virus living in bats found in Thai caves, according to the Mail.
- “Embalmer survey 2023: Over 75% are still seeing novel white fibrous clots” – The mainstream medical community, media, FDA, CDC, NIH and Congress are still not investigating the issue of novel white fibrous clots and determining which are Covid jab-related, says Steve Kirsch on Substack.
- “Smokescreens – Part Eight” – Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan explore the challenges in understanding and identifying respiratory viruses given their constant mutation.
- “Will Israel be charged with genocide at The Hague?” – The Telegraph’s Paul Nuki discusses the impending charge of genocide against Israel shortly to be considered by the International Court of Justice.
- “The double-standards of Israel’s critics” – In the New Conservative, Peter Harris suggests that the holding of Israel to a higher moral standard may be rooted in a form of condescension from the liberal Left.
- “Why I quit my dream job at MIT” – In the Free Press, Mauricio Karchmer discusses why he refuses to teach students who lack basic critical thinking skills or who condemn his Jewish identity.
- “Starmer to embrace ‘nanny state’ with plan for toothbrushing in schools” – Keir Starmer has announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools, says the Guardian.
- “Why Mandelson’s links to Epstein could come back to haunt Starmer” – Lord Mandelson, one of the best-known New Labour spin doctors, features in the latest tranche of released Epstein court documents, notes Victoria Ward in the Telegraph.
- “Varadkar has no ‘sustainable figure’ in mind for asylum seekers” – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he has no “particular figure” in mind for what would be a “sustainable” number of asylum seekers Ireland could accommodate, reports Gript.
- “Marine Le Pen already rules France” – Macron may hope the appointment of a new PM will revive his Presidency, but it’s highly unlikely, says Gavin Mortimer in the Telegraph.
- “France gives up on meritocracy” – Can you guess where France’s youngest Prime Minister graduated from? asks the Naked Emperor on Substack.
- “Welsh village cut off because 20 mph limit means buses don’t have time to go there” – Residents of a Welsh village say they are being isolated after a bus company axed the only local route as a result of the new 20 mph speed limit, according to ITV News.
- “Replacing Westminster gas lamps with LED replicas would be ‘cultural vandalism’, say Tory MPs” – Senior Conservative MPs have warned that a Net Zero push to replace London’s historic gas lamps with LED replicas would represent “cultural vandalism”, says the Standard.
- “Met Police: Ignored eco activists risk becoming radicalised” – The Met Police warns that eco activists risk becoming radicalised as they sense “they are not being listened to by the Government”, reports the Epoch Times.
- “Chris Skidmore and the scourge of the Tory eco-zealots” – Chris Skidmore’s political tribe has done untold damage to his country, writes Andrew Orlowski in Spiked.
- “How the ideological fantasy of a permadrought caused German dam operators to overfill their reservoirs and exacerbated the massive December floods” – On Substack, Eugyppius blames dam mismanagement for the recent flooding in Germany, where ideological influences led to dangerously full reservoirs.
- “The disgusting attempt to silence Joey Barton” – What’s more “dangerous” and “disgusting”, Joey Barton sounding off or a Government minister threatening to clamp down on speech? asks Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
- “An unhappy ending for the gender war telltales” – Let’s hope the case of the social worker Rachel Meade is the last time anyone is persecuted merely for stating scientific facts, writes Janice Turner in the Times.
- “Banksy and the death of satire” – Progressive comics who attack the Establishment don’t realise it’s their view that dominates, remarks David James in CapX.
- “Stop moaning about ‘fatphobia’ – obesity is nothing to celebrate” – It’s no more bigoted to tell people they shouldn’t eat too much than it is to tell them they shouldn’t drink too much, argues Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “Tennis bodies are monitoring social media, aiding in speech removal ” – Tennis organisations are actively getting on board the (online) content surveillance and suppression bandwagon, says Didi Rankovic in Reclaim The Net.
- “An open letter to Armando Iannucci” – In Spiked, Graham Linehan asks why Britain’s most-celebrated satirist has turned a blind eye to woke authoritarianism.
- “Scotland is abandoning children to trans extremists” – Encouraging young gay people to think they should change gender in order to become ‘straight’ is surely itself a form of conversion therapy, argues Julie Bindel in the Telegraph.
- “The Washington Post is collapsing, and only Donald Trump can save it” – Jeff Bezos’s prized paper is losing $100 million a year, writes Jordan Schachtel on Substack.
- “Group preps to sue MIT, alleges it rejects male applicants for less-qualified female ones” – A group of MIT alumni are set to sue the school for unlawfully rejecting male applicants for less-qualified female ones to advance gender equality, according to the College Fix.
- “Marvel went woke, now it’s going broke” – The superhero-film studio is paying a heavy price for trying to lecture its fans, says Laurie Wastell in Spiked.
- “Police wrap blankets around eco-activists” – A video posted on X shows police delivering warm blankets to eco-activists frightened by global warming…
Police brought warm blankets to eco-activists who are frightened by global warming
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 10, 2024pic.twitter.com/MmmcYn0jFa
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I expected Phillipson to dig her heels in on this. I guess the government has made a calculation that this is a hill not worth dying on. They are so unpopular on many fronts that this has, I guess, had a sobering effect on the degree of zealotry they feel. I expect to see partial backdowns in other areas too.
Fingers crossed
New laws protecting free speech on campus are likely to be given the green light in the new year.
Given that the madleft is the junior partner in an alliance with the transnational corporate aristocracy, an alliance founded on both groups seeking to impose a post-democratic total-control state on us, I’m sceptical about this. And where would the madleft be without its endless proliferation of thought-terminating heresies – its “isms” and “phobias”, and its designation of us as “ists” and “phobes”? I just can’t see them giving up their attempt to control our language and speech.
Meanwhile, a so-called response to the petition to call a general election.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
Fixing the foundations, 22bn black hole… All the usual buzzword tripe.
The best part is doubtlessly this:
The Government was elected by the British people on a mandate of change
Presumably, on a mandate of chump change, as the people’s government on a budget. With everything getting more expensive all the time, nobody can afford a really full-featured government anymore. Starmer might not be the greatest PM in British history. But he was 75% reduced to clear!
Meaningless drivel the apparatus excreted in lieu of a response after being poked with a stick. Starmer’s gang of people who are unsure if they can really tell whether they are men or women or maybe something else altogether doesn’t even pretend to have some kind of political vision beyond We run the show now! And we’ll save the climate until you all get blue in the face! Hahahahahaha!
The closing maniacal laughter is of course really inappropriate for this bunch of automatons tasked with extracting more money for UN projects from the general public. They’re not that human.
There is no freedom of speech without freedom of thought. Can you not feel how the shackles feel heavier every day? As if even if you stayed true to speaking your truth, there would be less people who publicly acknowledged agreement wth you lest they be identified. It has happened, people being sacked for ‘liking’ something. This is the real issue. You need to remove this cloud of fear and apprehension. There is no excuse for turning a blind eye to this given that you can feel it yourself.
Well done to Toby Young and the Free Speech Union for fighting against this anti-democratic attempt to completely discard an Act of Parliament that had already received Royal Assent.
News said the Labour government are doing the same thing to another historically important Act of Parliament that had already received Royal Assent: The Troubles Legacy Act, one of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s greatest contributions to justice and peace, which gave British Army veterans the same immunity against vindictive prosecutions as Traitor Tony Blair unilaterally and outrageously gave to the Catholic IRA Terrorists. Prime Minister Johnson had promised to do this, and he fulfilled his promise faithfully.
Now Labour will reignite the endless persecution of British Army veterans for things that happened half a century ago, while letting the Catholic IRA Terrorists off scot-free for all their heinous atrocities, including the murder of Protestant mother-of-ten children Mrs. Jean McConville, who was dragged from her house, shot dead on a beach, and buried secretly in the sand, as punishment for the “crime” of helping a wounded British Army soldier who had fallen to the ground in front of her garden gate.
Why is the Legacy Act being abolished and what does it mean for Northern Ireland? | The Independent
Thought I’d correct the governments slogan for them…
I suggest
Let’s get Britain’s future backwards!
Does this mean the Free Speech Union does not have to take her to court?
Let’s just remind ourselves that this whole fiasco is the fault of the previous Conservative government.
The Act was passed as an “enabling Act”, giving the Minister the power to activate it by issuing regulations. This is how Acts of Parliament are normally drafted these days, in post-democratic Britain.
If the Conservatives had passed a proper Act of Parliament as opposed to letting the Blob govern, the provisions would have been put into effect long ago.