The “alleged” problem of grooming gangs and claims of ‘two-tier policing’ are part of a “Right-wing extremist narrative” and police should record more non-crime hate incidents, not less, a leaked Home Office report has said. The Telegraph has the story.
The counter-extremism review recommends that Labour reverses the previous Government’s move to limit the recording of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) over concerns about their impact on free speech.
On Monday night, Ministers backed the increased use of NCHIs for incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitism.
In an assessment that will lead to a backlash from Tory and Reform politicians, the report also says that “claims of ‘two-tier’ policing” are a “Right-wing extremist narrative” and that grooming gangs are an “alleged” problem “frequently exploit[ed]” by the far-Right.
The row over NCHIs and free speech flared last year after [Telegraph journalist Allison] Pearson was investigated by police for the crime of allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a tweet about two-tier policing. The case was subsequently dropped.
Pearson initially believed she was being investigated for an NCHI and the incident resulted in a public debate about their use.
In June 2023, Suella Braverman, the Conservative Home Secretary at the time, ordered police to stop recording NCHIs, which do not meet the criminal threshold but are logged by police regardless, just because someone was offended.
The new report says the Home Office should “reverse the previous Government’s code of practice”.
The review – called a “rapid sprint” – was ordered by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, in August last year as part of work to develop a new counter-extremism strategy and was leaked to Policy Exchange, the think tank.
NCHIs were introduced after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence to monitor situations that could escalate into more serious harm or show heightened community tensions. However, they have increasingly been used to record trivial incidents.
More than 13,000 incidents were logged by police forces in the past year, including against schoolchildren, vicars and doctors.
Although having an NCHI recorded against a person does not involve any sanction and is not a criminal record, it may show up on an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check, potentially affecting employment prospects.
Ms Cooper has proposed expanding the recording of NCHIs in relation to antisemitism and Islamophobia because she believes they can warn of rising abuse against Jewish and Muslim communities.
The report suggests that any changes would “encompass all five protected characteristics”, which includes hate based on race, disability, sexual orientation or gender reassignment. Home Office sources said a wider expansion of NCHIs was not planned.
In its section on the extreme Right, the Home Office report says “claims of ‘two-tier policing’, where two groups are allegedly treated differently after similar behaviour” are an example of a “Right-wing extremist narrative” which is “leaking into mainstream debates”.
It also warns: “Right-wing extremists frequently exploit cases of alleged group-based sexual abuse to promote anti-Muslim sentiment as well as anti-government and anti-‘political correctness’ narratives.” …
Among its recommendations, the report also said ministers should consider a new offence of making “harmful communications” likely to cause “psychological harm”.
The proposal – originally part of the Online Safety Bill – was rejected by the previous Government for threatening free speech and its “potential to criminalise speech on the basis that it caused someone offence”.
More tin-eared ideological rubbish from the hopeless Home Office. How long till the U.K. moves to political Civil Service appointments, like the U.S., so incoming governments can tame and shape the Blob rather than be held hostage by it?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Times says the lion’s share of these Home Office recommendations have been “rejected” by Yvette Cooper and Dan Jarvis, a Home Office Minister.
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“The sun has got his hat on
Hip, hip, hip hooray
The sun has got his hat on
And he’s coming out today!”
Blimey, even the sun is “woke” now, along with Father Christmas and the rest…
There is no doubt in my view that proper studies of insect populations need to be undertaken. I too remember the days gone by when any journey outside the town would result in a windscreen and front bonnet covered in splattered insects, but no more. The question is why?
Unfortunately, if this subject can be tacked on to another “crisis” some dishonest member(s) of ‘The Science’ will surely do so.
The subject is however more than worthy of in-depth study.
Have you ever considered that the angle of a car windscreen has changed and is now far more streamlined and thus insects are likely to pass over rather than splatter
The number plate’s not, and indeed there are several insects splatted on mine, I just checked.
Yes I have. Bird populations do seem to fluctuate wildly though. Done properly a study in to insect populations would be of far more value to humanity than the millions currently wasted on nonsensical and pointless climate change studies.
Found it remarkable yesterday how many insects invaded our house – never seen so many varied types; our little garden was thick with them and I was chasing butterflies around the house to try to remove them! This doesn’t tell us anything about wider patterns of course but the way the heat had seemingly brought millions of extra critters to life was quite something!
‘… proper studies of insect populations need to be undertaken.’
Why?
Bee populations are under pressure. So, possibly insect populations are too. What are the causes? What would be wrong with on-going studies into insect populations? As somebody has rightly pointed out insects form the basis of the food chain.
Until Billy starts screwing around of course.
I think swallows are low in number this year but around me loads of swifts, probably more than I ever remember. Martins probably a little lower on house martins but loads of sand martins around on the local river.
I cannot be convinced that the numbers of these birds have any relationship to insect armageddon – more likely varying environmental factors in their massive migrations.
There was a story a few years back about cuckoo numbers being down in England, but less so in Wales for some reason. I seem to remember a link with Malta was suggested and what they do to birds there.
(Speaking of Malta, I also seem to remember a story about Malta having “only” two different rubbish bins, and daily bin collections. Why are we so bad on this in the UK?).
Here in Thailand we have nightly rubbish collections. I have a recycler who comes and picks up all bottles(plastic and glass) cardboard paper and cans. These are provided by the local council and i do NOT pay for these services.
This is another interesting subject. Welsh and Scottish cuckoos are thought to take a different migratory path in the autumn compared with the English cuckoos. The English travel more SW through Spain and the Welsh and Scottish travel more SE through Italy. Feeding conditions here are much better as 95% of the tracked cuckoos safely reach their winter quarters. This is reflected in the better fate of their breeding populations; Welsh cuckoos have declined much less than in England and Scottish populations have remained stable.
The life cycle of the cuckoo is amazing!
Or events along their migration routes.
Insect Armageddon may have many causes, but discount Climate Change. Almost continuous geoengineering and its close relation the ever increasing level of radio frequency pollution should be near the top of any list.
radio frequency pollution
Can you elaborate?
If we’re facing insect Armageddon, it’s going to bugger-up their plan to make us all give up meat and instead eat insects.
I wonder what they’ll come up with next? Eat dirt?
Worms.
Cue singing…
‘Nobody likes me,
Everybody hates me.
I think I’ll eat some worms.
long thin slimy ones,
Short fat hairy ones.
See how they wiggle & squirm.
Bite their heads off,
Slurp the juice out, throw the skins away.
I don’t know how I could live without my worms three times a day!’
LOL! My first laugh of the day thank you!
My pleasure! Don’t think they teach it in the Brownies any more!!!
It might be on the verge of a comeback though if Billy hears about it.
There has definitely been a huge drop in the number of birds and insects in our garden here in Suffolk. The bee population has dropped dramatically as has the number of butterflies and so has the small birds – it has been quite a dramatic change. However the number of wood pigeons seem to have increased unfortunately.
Since a pair of peregrines took residence of the church spire, our pigeon population has been a tad smaller.
We have a few beekeepers in the village so we don’t want for honeybees but I’ve noticed fewer moths this year & reduced bat activity of an evening.
Lose the food at the bottom of the pyramid & the predator species suffer. Not until the predator species or the prey with PR are affected that we stupidly take note.
I bought a bug home, a luxury pad for insects which is on the house wall facing south, but as yet no one has taken up tenancy!
One of the many terrible harms of climate fraud is that genuine environmental and conservation causes have been sidelined or rubbished by association, as this article correctly highlights. I spent my childhood and younger years as an ardent conservationist, now I look at organisations like WWF and Greenpeace as the enemy. Even recycling, something I once felt quite strongly about, is tainted by association.
Insects undoubtedly need our concern and protection given their sensitivity to the toxins we routinely pump into the ecosystem. How ironic then that we take environmental lessons from one Bill Gates with his links to Monsanto. We’re living in a ghoulish inversion of reality.
No surprise but this matches my position in its entirety.
WRT recycling, from being very keen my position now is anything in any bin. I can of course kid myself that if I deliberately mix my rubbish I am virtuously providing somebody with work in a sorting plant.
Naiively I fantasise that our rubbish is sorted and recycled.
I don’t really believe any of it gets recycled, that if it is, it’s probably more energy intensive and that really, it’s all just an exercise in promoting communitarianism to break pleb individualism!
Yep.
I really liked this article – very well thought out and balanced. I think one thing to bear in mind is that bird populations vary as some are displaced by others. My personal impression was that Magpies were a rarity when I was a child in the 60s and (having just checked) this is confirmed by the RSPB. Starling populations, on the other hand, have declined significantly. I do think it is important to understand the reasons for these changes, but they may not, per se, be a sign of ecological catastrophe.
Tens – or is it hundreds – of thousands of wind turbines and acres of solar panels, both renowned for daily mass slaughter of avians and insects – could that have anything to do with it – particularly since climate change lunacy and these blots on the landscape are a pandemic of the Northern Hemisphere?
Plus: large areas of land now used for growing crops for biofuels, and large areas no longer farmed. Birds and insects adapted to previous conditions may have been affected.
And where is it writ except among creationalists, that all species must remain the same exactly as their creator intended?
So natural variability and evolution? Too difficult for biologists, naturalists? And of course anathema to ‘conservationists’ for whom NOTHING can be allowed to change.
“proper studies of insect populations need to be undertaken.’
Why?”
Have you not answered your own question?
Very odd.