By dropping the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, Bridget Phillipson has betrayed the fight for free speech and academic freedom in universities, and brought shame upon the Labour Party, says Claire Fox in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt:
Less than a week before the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was to come into force – over a year since it was given Royal Assent in May last year after passing through two houses of Parliament – the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced her “decision to stop further commencement… in order to consider options, including its repeal”.
I had to read her statement several times to believe it, thinking at first it might be an anti-Labour “deep fake” designed to imply that the new Government is callously indifferent not just to free speech, but the democratic process itself.
When the Act passed last year, ultimately with cross-party support, I let out a loud sigh of relief rather than a cheer. It had taken months of exhausting arguments, hours of speeches and the watering down of amendments just to modestly enhance the academic freedom duty on universities. This would allow a complaints scheme for students, staff and visiting speakers, who could seek compensation if they suffered a breach of a university’s obligations, and allowed fines or sanctions for higher education providers and student unions if they transgressed.
Despite all of this hard work, Phillipson has with undue haste speedily threatened to cancel a law itself designed to counter cancel culture. She didn’t even bother telling Parliament face-to-face from the dispatch box, which would have at least allowed some push-back or heckles of “shame”, instead preferring that favoured messaging device of pen-pushers – a written communique from on high, on the eve of Parliamentary summer recess.
Like all good bureaucrats, Phillipson has exploited a loophole: the Act was democratically passed, but commencement – usually a technicality – was cynically manipulated in an act of bad-faith betrayal. …
In an interview on Monday, Bridget Phillipson declared “the culture wars on university campuses end here”. Now on Friday, she has declared war on the culture of free speech on campus. Let me assure her, as a parliamentarian and the Director of the Academy of Ideas, surrender is not on the cards. The fight-back starts here.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: If you thought that the new Labour Government was going to be liberal, tolerant and govern Britain from the centre, think again, says Matt Goodwin on X.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Next paid 3 day seminar: ‘GlobaloneyBoiing and how it causes cancer, heart attacks and ugly nurses’
Next one after that: ‘Midazolam, murder, and euthansia and why we need to do it more often – tips and tricks for beginners’
Next one after: ‘Stabbinations, profits and Transhumanism – how to stab effectively and safely’
Followed by: ‘Dance routines in empty hospitals during a scamdemic – intermediate level’
etc
End. The. National. Death. Service.
Next one: The Roman Empire flourished during the Roman Warm Period. How an increase in temperatures leads to colonialism and how you can prevent it by turning down the heating on your wards.
Next one: Don’t clap for carers. How not to contract an STD at work.
Next one: How to tackle the obesity crisis. A beginners guide to fat shaming.
Next one: How to frame a neonatal nurse to cover up failings in your department. An advanced course for senior managers.
More Tax payers hard earned ££,s down the SH1TTER !
Memo from the Prime Minister’s office:
“Steve, important we respond to show that we’re on the side of ordinary working people, so suggest you:
1. Make announcement today that you’re a bit miffed about this
2. Er…think (1) should be enough, so no further action required.
Cheers mate. Rish”
I’ll tell you who needs unconscious bias training – the radicals that organise these conferences and push these insane agendas on everyone. They, more than anyone else, need to examine their biases. In fact they probably need psychotherapy pretty urgently.
Please don’t call it a Diversity Conference. It has nothing to do with Diversity. Our enemies have chosen this language in order to make anyone who opposes their mad, evil ideas seem like they are against “diversity” (whatever that means) – and what nice, right-thinking person could possibly be against that?
We must now always put an Orwellian interpretation on anything coming from those nominally in authority.
I’m completely against diversity when it means giving respect to a minor attracted person & child abusers. When I started in the NHS in the late 1980s they were called paedophiles & mandatory training was for child protection, how to spot grooming behaviours & prevent harm. How the world has changed. I’d be going through a disciplinary if I were still working as there is no way I could stop protecting children by going along with this perverted nonsense.
Patient care should be the focus of healthcare & that includes being aware of signs of abuse rather than facilitating abuse disguised as healthcare.
I’ve spotted a couple in my career & with the right intervention have helped to protect a wife & 2 children.
NHS internal emails and intranet announcements have the writer specify their preferred method of address, such as ‘he/him’.
Benches outside hospitals, a Southeastern Railway locomotive, and the logo of a branch of a high street bank are striped in the rainbow + chevron colours. Perhaps the new banknotes featuring the portrait of the King will be the next to display this sign of the new conformity.
The very fact that Fishy and his ministers are allowing this jamboree to proceed tells us all we need to know about where their priorities lie and whose side they are on.
An NHS waiting list of seven million and a regional health authority is organising a three day talking shop on pronouns? FFS!
Jacqueline Scott, the head nutter for this outfit, should be loudly and publicly sacked and made an example of.
Unfortunately, this crap is all part of the Agenda 2030 ESG criminal enterprise and we all know where Fishy takes his orders from so this shit will simply continue.
NHS motto:
F. the patients we’re on a jamboree.
Some people may well die while this beano plays out.
Beautifully put.
Thank you.
Brilliant, HP!
Thanks Aethelred
What on god’s green earth is this to do with healthcare? Nothing. How many times do you, as the NHS customer, find yourself in the position of being confused what to call someone? Never I should think. So it’s all about brainwashing the healthcare service in idiotic language. And this is a conference for 1,000 people over 3 days which is going to cost money. And who are all these attendees? People taken away from the actual business that the NHS is meant to deliver. It’s a effing disgrace!
This is worse than a disgrace: It’s New Labour authorized fraud. There’s a so-called equalities act which demands that all public services must DIE (note the wording) and hence, hordes of consultant and ‘charitable’ poleeches attach themselves to anything with a budget in order to suck it dry.
Seconded Aethelred
If I called a patient by the wrong name or title, they were usually quick to say what I should have called them. How does that differ from not knowing which pronoun to use? I’m certain that a very quick & firm correction would be made!!
I´m pretty sure that if doctors and nurse were in charge of the health service, we would not see this inversion of clinical priorities.
Given the way doctors and nurses have conducted themselves these last three years, I cannot support that contention.