Toby Young – the Daily Sceptic‘s founder and Editor-in-Chief, and founder and Director of the Free Speech Union – has been awarded a peerage and will take his seat in the House of Lords next year, Downing Street has announced. The Telegraph has more.
Toby Young has been awarded a peerage, Downing Street has announced.
The founder and Director of the Free Speech Union will take his place in the House of Lords next year.
He is also a prominent proponent of free schools and set one up in west London.
A peerage has also been awarded to Nigel Biggar, a Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford University.
Prof Biggar has become famous in recent years for speaking out against criticisms of the British Empire.
The Conservative names were part of a list announced on Friday afternoon.
As expected, Sue Gray – Sir Keir Starmer’s former Chief of Staff – will be sent to the House of Lords, just two months after she left her role following internal rows.
Sir Keir has nominated 30 Labour peers. The Prime Minister has argued that the extra appointments are needed because Labour –which won the July election – has fewer seats in the Upper House than the Tories.
Mr. Young and Prof Biggar were nominated by Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader. …
The Prime Minister also nominated Mary Bousted, the former Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, who repeatedly opposed the reopening of schools during the Covid pandemic.
The former First Minister of Wales has also been made a peer despite overseeing deteriorating performance of the NHS in the principality.
A number of prominent Jewish members have been ennobled in a bid to put to bed memories of the Jeremy Corbyn era.
They include Luciana Berger, who was forced out of Labour because of antisemitism but has since rejoined, and Mike Katz, the national Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Telegraph, Nigel Biggar – who is FSU Chairman – says it’s “time to come off the fence” as he states that he now identifies as “a conservative” and explains why.
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Huge congratulations to Toby!
Very well deserved. Especially after all those times he said it wasn’t going to happen on “London Calling”!
He will be a wonderful spokesman for sanity in the House of Lords.
Which has the effect of the square root of F.A.
You miserable sod!
Hear, hear!
Big shame he sits as a Tory. Biggar ditto.
If he believes in free speech then it doesn’t matter.
Well I think it does. It wrongly attributes a belief in freedom and free speech in particular to a party which has done huge damage to both. The whips will also influence Toby to hold his tongue from time to time.
Interesting point about the party whips, but here is further information:
“Defying a three-line whip is very serious, and has occasionally resulted in the whip being withdrawn from an MP or Lord. This means that the Member is effectively expelled from their party (but keeps their seat) and must sit as an independent until the whip is restored.”
So Lord Young could easily sit as an independent in the House of Lords for as long as he wished…
I’m not sure that will constrain him much if at all, though I suppose if you believe that the Tory party must be destroyed then I suppose it’s a shame as he may be seen as giving them support. But he may regard it as an unmissable opportunity to have a bigger voice for the things he believes in.
You said “…an unmissable opportunity to have a bigger voice for the things he believes in.”
Spot on.
Thanks Adam.
Congratulations Toby, well deserved!
Thanks.
Congratulations.
However, timeo danae et done ferentes. Awarding someone a seat in the House of Lords is a pretty effective way to keep him out of the House of Commons.
‘The rule change in 2014 allows life peers to resign or retire from the Lords and run for office as an MP.’
‘Peers who resign from the Lords are not allowed to resume their seats, although they can retain the style “Lord” or “Baroness” for life.’
‘Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has pledged to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper chamber as part of plans to “restore trust in politics”.’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/13/lord-david-frost-to-give-up-seat-among-peers-mp/
Once it is an elected chamber the PM will have to ensure that 30 Labour peers get elected if there are more Tories. No doubt there are ways and means…
Very well done Toby – now you can really speak truth to Power from within!
Rather from a symbolically elevated Speaker’s Corner firmly outside of the actual circles of power.
Now is not the time to be curmudgeonly.
The House of Lord is what it is: An oversized debating chamber without any real political influence.
I also distrust the motivations of Kemi “climate change is real but needs to be handled differently” Badenoch. Insofar my limited understanding of the political situation in the UK goes, the Tories need Reform to go away for a chance to get back at the helm of the uniparty government which is more lucrative than being in opposition. Toby Young now being a Tory peer could well be meant to help with that.
Personally, I wish him all the best.
I agree that Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke has been desperately casting about to find someone else’s glory to bask in, but don’t worry. Our Lord Young cannot be “bought”, and he will carry on battling for Freedom of Speech from a much stronger position in the House of Lords.
Hopefully
Yeah, ifyou can keep them from falling asleep
Thanks:
Congratulations Lord Young! We need people like you in the Lords, and if it wasn’t for you, I guess I wouldn’t even be typing this now on this site.
Thanks.
Massive congrats Toby!
Cheers.
Congratulations Toby, one of the very few who actually deserve to be given a peerage.
I would however counsel that when you sup with the Devil, you need a long spoon,
I am sure you will be alive to the scorpions around you,
Thanks Hester.
Congratulations Toby!
Cheers.
Off topic, but BBC is claiming Wham is number one this Christmas for second year running. Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers not even mentioned in the top ten, so according to them, they won’t have to play it. I’m calling bullshit on that
Speaking of the abysmal Beeb, they even send the goon squad round your house on Christmas Day! Well they’ve got to be of a certain ‘other’ religion that’s big into cultural enrichment, surely;
”Look at these threats from the BBC mafia – expect the thugs on Christmas Day!
When we win in 2029, the licence fee is gone on day one.”
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1870156993463247262
It has been reported that Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers topped the download charts, but the official top 40 is compiled based on streaming, physical copies sold and downloads.
Yea I heard that on the radio, I thought to myself….hang on a minute matey!
If he has an ounce of integrity he’d disown it.
If they can’t beat you they make you one of them.
Don’t forget your roots – unless of course you really are of them.
WHY has this been done one may ask one’s self.
Probably due to sterling work on behalf of “Friends of Israel”.
“Why has this been done?” Precisely. As I posted on the previous thread there is something not kosher about this.
Toby Young founded the Free Speech Union which has been a constant thorn in the side of the establishment since inception. He set up Lockdown Sceptics which has been vociferous in exposing both our government and the Davos Deviants. So, something in this Orwellian world we currently inhabit does NOT add up.
I do not wish to piss on Toby’s chips but a honour which allows for the continuance of an utterly corrupt and depraved system is not something I personally would celebrate. There must be something in Kneel’s allowing this honour and I would like to know what it is.
I am a big supporter of Toby Young and have made this plain many times in the last four plus years and I greatly appreciate the FSU and especially the haven which is the Daily Sceptic but as far as I am concerned this stinks. No criticism of Toby Young intended.
“There must be something in Kneel’s allowing this honour and I would like to know what it is.”
Toby’s appointment has nothing to do with Keir Starmer, he was appointed by Kemi Badenoch.
And there was no Scamdemic.
But it was a scam!
It’s a little surprising. Maybe Badenoch sees him as someone she should get onside. I think TY will continue to be himself, regardless. Whether or not you agree with all his views I think he has been pretty consistent.
tof, I will always be grateful to Toby Young for this site if nothing else. Those months between March 2020 and September when I found DS were bloody awful, I was literally on my own. When I say on my own I mean seriously on my own – no friends, no family sharing even a shred of my point of view, all satisfied with government and BBC bs. I am not saying DS saved my life – I am still a Catholic – but by God this blog was the best crutch I had and the people here gave me hope and some members will forever be friends even if we never meet.
Anyway, Toby is not responsible for the award but I cannot get away from the fact that it strikes me that there might be an element of qud pro quo. I bloody hope not but we’ll see.
Certainly while Labour are still in government I imagine TY will be vigorously opposing almost everything they do, and doing it well.
Agree. According to Bell curve theory, 50% of any population is below average intelligence
TY has always been very much in favour of Kemi Badenoch. Don’t know if he has influenced others, thereby facilitating her election as Tory leader but it behoves her to recognise this.
(Personally I finished with them when they ditched Liz Truss.)
I suppose this elevation to the peerage is technically an honour but it’s reputation has been trashed comprehensively of late with some recent recipients and I’m not sure it’s worth it. At least it gives TY the platform to speak to a wider audience so I will give it a thumbs up for that reason.
I think he backed Badenoch in the leadership contest. She’s probably the best of a bad bunch – she has bigger balls than any other Tory leader since Thatcher (low bar though) and I think is actually vaguely conservative. I can’t forgive her for her support for the scamdemic, which she has not recanted from. I think TY is member of the Tory party, though I think he backed Reform in the election, presumably because he wasn’t impressed with Sunak.
What a ridiculous comment, saying The Nigerian Birth Tourist is somehow stronger than any Tory leader since Thatcher!!!
Are you out of your tiny mind???
As I said, I think it’s a low bar. Who was better?
Any Indigenous English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish citizen is a better representative of the people whose ancestors have lived in these islands for more than A THOUSAND YEARS.
comment moved elsewhere…
Well I think we would have been better off as a country had our population’s ethnic mix remained at end of WW2 levels, but that doesn’t mean that no foreigner could do a better job as Tory leader than any native born British person. I don’t need to quote you a list of British PMs who have been rubbish.
Every nation in the world has the natural right to elect ONE OF THEIR OWN ETHNIC GROUP as leader of their nation.
NOBODY EVER VOTED for Third World Immigration into the West AT ALL.
NOBODY EVER VOTED for miscegenation, which even France’s Sarkozy threatened to force upon the Indigenous People of France.
Remind me— when did we EVER have a Northern Irish Prime Minster? Or an Aussie one, for example, from the Commonwealth?
No, it’s all Indian Subcontinentals and Africans, shoved onto the Indigenous Brits by the Anti-White Globalists pushing The Great Replacement. I’m sick to death of it all.
I’m not best pleased myself
But she would make a better PM than Starmer
Yes, and here she is, the Nigerian Birth Tourist who thinks she should represent the Indigenous People of the British Isles, and that everyone should help make her Illegal Prime Minister, for no other reason than that she wants it !!! To satisfy her enormous ego and false sense of entitlement by playing the Race Card at every opportunity !!!
Talk about the effectiveness of Globalist Brainwashing of the Masses! Here she is, in all her hideous glory, totally alien to the history, culture and people of the British Isles:
Why do you have to bring Israel into everything
Pos
What about Muhammadans? They seem to be insinuating themselves everywhere and people are not interested. Just distracted by age old conspiracies about the Jews. Mad
I do remember the banter with James Delingpole about this…Toby, this is SO deserved. Huge congrats! (But is your wife ever going to see you?!)
Toby will be called “The Right Honourable Lord Young”, his wife will be called “Lady Young” and the children will be called “The Honourable”.
I’m sure his wife won’t mind his work absences in the House of Lords, any more than the spouses of members of the House of Commons.
Thanks Deborah.
Many, many congratulations Toby, this is a richly deserved reward for your efforts.
Fantastic news!
Thanks.
Wonderful news and richly deserved.
Cheers.
I don’t know whether TY regards this as an honour or not but if he takes his seat I look forward to seeing some frank talk in the upper chamber
Congratulations, Toby. Great news.
Thanks.
Labour doesn’t need as many peers as Tories because:
Bishops are all left
Greens are all left
LibDems are all left or asleep
Most Tories are left
All the former civil servant peers are left
Who have I forgotten
How many more bottles of wine to your annual tally does this imply, I wonder?
Congratulations but I have to say that it doesn’t sound like a particularly subversive line up to me. If that is subversion than we are more disciplined by totalitarianism than we like to imagine.
An outstanding appointment.
Difficult to think of anyone more deserving.
Many congratulations, Lord Young.
Cheers.
The Free Speech Union having at least two voices now in the House of Lords can’t be a bad thing. Congratulations Toby.
Thanks you.
I honestly thought the headline was a send-up, someone having a laugh, then a quick look at the comments told me it was real!!!
Astonishing, wonderful news— our own fearless leader now has a voice in the House of Lords!!! Congratulations, Lord Toby Young! I wonder what his new title will be, after it’s all processed by the House of Lords committee?
Then I thought, “But how on earth is this possible? Who could have nominated him, since all politicians hate him except for Reform???”
Then the awful news hit: The Nigerian Birth Tourist is handing out British peerages like an African queen, already imagining how they will kneel before her. So that’s why we had to endure all those tedious sycophantic articles about her in the News Round-Up. More of them on the way, I expect. As soon as she was shoehorned into the leadership post by the Globalists, she started scanning her spidey radar around for support, first pouncing upon J.K.Rowling to offer a peerage, hoping to bask in JK’s reflected glory, but JK remained silent.
Be that as it may, our Toby’s light will shine brightly in the House of Lords, as he remains faithful to that great roadside slogan by the indomitable Lockdown Sceptic, out there every day, in sunshine, frost and pouring rain:
“FIGHT EVIL.
SPEAK THE TRUTH”
What a great photo of him, too— his wonderful facial expression showing that he’s not about to let it go to his head.
“RAFT”
https://order-order.com/2024/12/20/starmer-hands-out-raft-of-peerages-to-political-allies/#:~:text=STARMER%20HANDS%20OUT-,RAFT,-OF%20PEERAGES%20TO
What a list of charlatans and grifters.
Well deserved recognition. The real work begins.
Thanks Neil.
Congratulations! A thoroughly deserved honour. At least there are some in high places who appreciate Toby’s extraordinary efforts.
Thanks.
WHat splendid news. It almost restores ones faith in the honours system – almost.
This story is unfolding so there will be updates. Two people confirmed killed and many injured at a German Christmas market. We’re off to Dusseldorf on Sunday so I’m certainly hoping there’ll be no such dramas as this has now become predictable every year, hence the heavy police presence;
”At least two people killed after a car crashed into shoppers at a Christmas market in Germany with distressing CCTV taken at the scene showing a vehicle mowing down people in the crowded space.
The horrific incident unfolded at the market in Magdeburg, east Germany, on Friday evening with unconfirmed reports as many as 11 could have been killed and outlet MDR reporting 70 people were injured 15 of whom were said to be serious. Dozens of emergency workers including police, paramedics and firefighters were seen at the site of the crash.
According to local broadcaster MDR, the driver has been has been arrested and a suspected explosive device was found inside the vehicle. Local government spokesperson Matthias Schuppe told the broadcaster the incident was an attack.
Unconfirmed reports have said the suspect is said to be a man from Saudi Arabia who was born in 1974. He is alleged rented the vehicle shortly before the attack.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-magdeburg-christmas-market-chaos-34355367
That he’s a man of 50 from Saudi-Arabia has been officially published as “results of the investigation so far”.
It’s the way they must *always* tag on somewhere ”it’s not yet known if the incident was terror-related”, or similar. Despite the fact there was an explosive device found in the car, he was deliberately trying to take out as many people as he could by driving in a zig-zag fashion, and then there’s his ethnicity. It just blows my mind how they never cease to gaslight and insult the intelligence of people. And what happened to the ‘diversity barriers’ that are supposed to prevent this sort of thing in the first place? That was an epic fail, evidently! It says he’s been working as a doctor in Germany for several years. A toddler is said to have been killed. Sick, evil f***er. These are family events, but it’s not ‘terror-related’, honest! Fecking morons, honestly. Keep on taking pen knives off white elderly ladies instead, stupid muppets!
I must point out how pathetic this is. Here are the German police in their endeavour to cut down on knife crime at the Christmas market, so they home in on a likely far right-looking older lady and confiscate her Swiss Army knife. Good job! Who knows what she might have got up to with that thing…She probably only needed it for the corkscrew!
”German police are profiling old white ladies at Christmas markets to confiscate the knives they’re carrying for self-protection. The same profiling is not applied to illegal aliens who pose a threat to said old ladies.”
https://x.com/stillgray/status/1869378844454686824
Nobody carries a knife like that “for self-protection”. It’s just a handy tool to have. Eg, it usually includes a tooth pick. Doubtlessly an especially dangerous weapon to carry around.
You can see the footage here. It’s hard to focus on the car, it’s going so fast, though the film appears to have been sped up. I don’t know how many lives relieving that white, elderly lady of her Swiss Army knife saved compared to what a vehicle, driven at speed by a sadistic, death-loving psychopath intent on mass-murder can do in the way of damage;
https://x.com/TPointUK/status/1870192877219049801
See how the MSM are reporting it. It’s the car what done it! Christ..
”These evil cars in Germany are out of control.
Why do these cars keep doing this?”
https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/1870204764408955369
This (confiscation of the pen knife) is part of the German home secretary’s preferred method of dealing with (mostly muslim immigrant) knife crime: Declare areas to be so-called arms prohibition zones (Waffenverbotszonen) where the police may stop and search everyone and confiscate everything they deem a weapon (and possibly, charge the owner with a crime).
As to It’s the car wot done it!: We all know the dangers of reckless driving! The solution is to lower the speed limits!
[sarcasm]
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone actually demanded that.
Here we go.
The attack on the #Magdeburg winter market is tragic.
But a general speed limit would have prevented it!
For how much longer do we want to accept motorized violence?
Background: Much to the chagrin of the woketurds, there’s no general speed limit on German roads and despite they’ve done their best to plaster special speed limits all over Germany, there are still some bits of motorway left where everyone is free to drive at a speed which suits him.
The unkown person who posted this has meanwhile claimed that it was supposed to be a joke.
What’s this got to do with Toby Young being given a peerage?
What are your views on that?
It seems like you are trying to draw everyone’s attention away from him toward yourself, like a bull in a china shop.
Really excellent news for the season! Many many congratulations Toby and recognition for so much innovative work gone before – get in and shake them all up.
Will do!
I don’t think he will change
Many many congratulations. Very well deserved. I guess he will have to put a throne in the garden shed.
Lol.
At last! He has had it coming for a long time. Congratulations to Toby, his team and the UK!
Congratulations!
Just had a thought. Does being a member of the House of Lords curtail what you can say or do in any way under Parliamentary rules? Does it take a lot of time away from the FSU and DS?
I hope not. And if not, Toby will be a force for good together with Claire Fox.
Suprised at this, free speech and the house of lords, not what I would have thought.
That’s brilliant very well deserved seriously when I first read that I thought it was a wind up!!!
Please don’t go MSM on us. Like to think Tobes can persuade the Lords of the stupidity of their ways on climate change, net zero, vaccine fraud, alphabet nonsense etc. etc. Probably just a pipe dream.
Keep ‘em on their toes Tobes!
His biggest contribution to free speech would be to refuse it. They’ve strived to put Nigel Farage on the establishment hook for years.
No, Nigel has often said he should be given a peerage for “single-handedly destroying Nick Griffin and the British National Party”, and for handing the previous election to the Tories by forcing his own Brexit Party candidates to stand down.
I object to the House of Frauds and the system of patronage (and selling power) which it represents.
However, just occasionally someone is appointed who really deserves it – and that describes Toby Young, so on this occasion I am not complaining.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Congratulations Toby, well deserved.
You could reform the Lords by getting to the chamber really early (about 11am) and locking the doors on the useless bigger!
Huge congratulations!
Thanks.
Brilliant news for both Toby Young and Professor Nigel Biggar, who have stood up for freedom and against cancel culture. Well done Kemi Badenoch for nominating them. How did the Blob let this go through?
congratulations toby! so well deserved .
you and will and everyone here at daily sceptic are and have been a shining light in darkness since march 2020. you have been a life saver! friends out there when almost no one to talk to except for random strangers and one great family member. everyone else brainwashed. so congrats toby!
Ta.
Congratulations!!
Good Lord!
That is fantastic. I have to say seeing the DS headline, I thought it was a spoof article.
Congratulations Toby and thank you for all of your efforts.
Thanks.
Good news, and I am happy for Toby. Now we can see the benefit of keeping one’s trap shut, which despite his supposedly being a ‘free-speech’ advocate, Toby has been very cautious of just how far he strays from the path of acceptable proclamation. Now we see why he has distanced himself from James Delingpole, and especially some of James’s more batty opinions, for example. But Toby has refused to comprehend or define that, that which is happening to our world is not just erroneous and accidental but is taking us to a new geopolitical and geoeconomic order by design. Toby dances up to this boundary and then flees from it remorselessly.
Now he has got his long anticipated prize, will he at long last be more daring?
Is Toby a pure Maverick, somehow I doubt it. Nothing happens by accident.
“Now he has got his long anticipated prize”
Is he on record as saying he was trying to get a seat in the Lords?
“Toby dances up to this boundary and then flees from it remorselessly.”
How do you know he just doesn’t hold the same opinions as you?
“despite his supposedly being a ‘free-speech’ advocate”
Do you have examples of him opposing or suppressing free speech? Posts on this site are full of “conspiracy theories” and stuff about “zionism” – certainly not in keeping with his views – yet those posts remain.
Happy fir Toby to receive recognition. Sad the current gov’t just keeps filling the trough. How much does the useless House of Lords cost the taxpayer. An abomination. A waste of hard earned money.
Toby’s elevation is to be welcomed, as he will reinforce the small band of sane voices in the upper chamber.
Such good news and so well-deserved after Toby Young’s rough ride in recent years. Many congratulations!
Thanks.