- “How Islamism infiltrated Downing Street” – An alarming piece by David Rose, UnHerd’s chief investigative reporter, on the Islamists who are close to Sir Keir Starmer and other member of the Government.
- “Union tells teachers to bring ‘Palestine struggle’ into schools” – Britain’s biggest teaching union is coaching its members on how to indoctrinate schoolchildren about the “Palestinian struggle”, reports the Telegraph.
- “The ICC’s Tainted Case Against Benjamin Netanyahu” – The Wall St Journal uncovers some unsavoury stories about Karim Khan, the prosecutor at the ICC leading the charge against the Prime Minister of Israel.
- “Inside Muslim-majority town where ‘there’s no point speaking English’” – The Mail visits Nelson, a Northern town where more than 10% of the population doesn’t speak English.
- “Asylum hotel fires blamed on migrant couriers’ e-bikes” – Warnings have been issued over the dangers of lithium batteries after it was revealed that fire crews have been called to deal with six fires at the same London hotel, all caused by the batteries in the bicycles of food delivery workers, says the Telegraph.
- “Iranians accused of spying in UK were asylum seekers” – The three Iranians charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service are all asylum seekers, reveals the Telegraph.
- “Iran refugee may be first woman to head Church” – Currently the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Francis-Dehqani, an Iranian refugee, is the favourite to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the Mail.
- “Co-op votes to boycott Israel” – The board of the Co-Op has been urged by a majority of the Co-Op’s members to show “moral courage and leadership” by removing Israeli products from supermarket shelves, reports the Telegraph.
- “Lucy Connolly poses no risk to anyone – let her go!” – Lucy Connolly, the childminder serving 31 months for a tweet, has been let down by our two-tier justice system after judges delayed ruling on her appeal, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
- “Suella Braverman: Arrest of ex-special constable over tweet is national embarrassment” – The former Home Secretary has hit out at “woke policing” and says Julian Foulkes’ ordeal was an attack on free speech, says the Telegraph.
- “From enlightenment to inquisition: the decline of Scottish justice in the age of offence” – The 2018 conviction of a man for making a tasteless joke may have seemed unremarkable at the time, but it marked the moment when the state declared that speech, not violence, was its greatest concern, writes CJ Strachan on his Substack.
- “Why I changed my mind about multiculturalism” – When Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain complains about an opponent believing “free speech means protecting the right to offend Muslims”, you feel an instinctive response gathering in your throat – you’re damn right it does, says Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
- “Emily Maitlis doesn’t understand grooming gangs” – Steerpike in the Spectator takes Emily Maitlis to task for denouncing Rupert Lowe as a ‘racist’ because he talked about the number of Pakistani men in rap gangs on her News Agents podcast.
- “Andrew Norfolk truly was righteous among men” – The grooming gangs scandal was the most toxic story in Britain, but Andrew Norfolk, the Times journalist who blew the story wide open, walked right into the heart of it and stayed there, writes Janice Turner in a tribute to her late colleague in the Times.
- “Starmer’s immigration ‘crackdown’ is a triumph for the quangos” – Keir Starmer appeared to be making all the right noises when he unveiled his immigration crackdown this week, but the only beneficiaries will be quangocrats, says Jake Scott in the Spectator.
- “Don’t believe a word Sir Sheer Squirmer says” – Writing in the Mail, Peter Hitchens says he doesn’t believe the PM wants to do anything to cut immigration.
- “Starmer: EU reset is good for our borders” – The PM insists his EU deal will benefit the UK, but critics warn it will “open the floodgates” for European migrants, reports the Telegraph.
- “Labour has spent 10 years trying to sabotage Brexit. Now it is finally getting its way” – “Boris Johnson and I fought tooth and nail to liberate the UK from EU control – now Starmer threatens to undo all our hard work,” writes David Frost in the Telegraph.
- “Don’t believe Starmer. He is about to betray Brexit” – This ‘surrender summit’ already has all the hallmarks of another bad deal, says Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
- “Britain holds all the cards in the EU ‘reset’. There is no reason to give Brussels anything” – Remainers such as Sir Keir have a deep-seated need to atone for the sin of Brexit, by giving away everything Brussels asks for, writes Dan Hannan in the Telegraph.
- “PM accused of ‘rank hypocrisy’ over £102,000 bill for domestic flights” – Sir Keir Starmer has spent over £100,000 on domestic flights in the last 10 months, m ore than double what Rishi Sunak spent in the equivalent period when he was PM, says the Mail.
- “Want to help the poor? Don’t chase out the rich” – Taxing the wealthy sounds like an easy way to fix inequality, but as Rachel Reeves is discovering, it’s not as simple as that, writes Fraser Nelson in the Times.
- “Rich List tycoons tell Rachel Reeves her tax will kill family firms” – Proposed increases in capital gains and inheritance tax will destroy family businesses, the Chancellor has been told by tycoons on the Sunday Times’ Rich List.
- “We Spent £220 Billion on Decarbonisation and Saw Zero Financial Benefits” – Kathryn Porter, a leading critic of Net Zero, is interviewed on Britain’s Thought Leaders by Lee Hall.
- “Saint Packham of Fitzrovia: The Blasphemy the Radio Times Is Proud Of” – On his Substack, CJ Strachan marvels at the BBC literally turning Chris Packham into a saint.
- “Ed Miliband’s net zero crusade is adding billions to Britons’ energy bills” – The Energy Secretary has been accused of inflating households’ costs without proper scrutiny, writes Jonathan Leake in the Telegraph.
- “The giant solar farm the size of Durham – thanks to Red Ed” – This week, a solar panel firm has been given the go-ahead by the Government to carpet more than 3,000 acres of East Yorkshire countryside in giant panels, reports the Mail.
- “Miliband could axe pylons to fight Reform threat” – Ed Miliband is considering scaling back plans to erect thousands of pylons across the countryside in the hope of stemming the flow of votes from Labour to Reform in key Labour battlegrounds, says the Telegraph.
- “I refuse to live in Ed Miliband’s grim future, without showers or kettles” – In the Telegraph, Zoe Strimpel takes aim at Red Ed’s fanaticism.
- “A 10mph speed limit is preposterous” – The Road Safety Foundation has been captured by anti-capitalist haters of motor cars, writes Andrew Tettenborn in the Spectator.
- “Dimming the Sun ‘not the way to fight climate change’” – A new survey has revealed just how sceptical the public is about ‘climate tinkering’ as the Government allocates another £57 million to cooling projects, according to the Telegraph.
- “Now even Greenpeace is worried about North Sea oil jobs” – We are told Net zzro will create employment, but there’s no sign of it happening – and even Greenpeace is concerned about the disappearance of North Sea oil jobs, writes Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
- “Lisa Nandy’s Culture Department faces axe” – Rumours about the axing of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which first appeared in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago, appear to be true, according to the Telegraph.
- “Gary Lineker is a joke” – In the Spectator, Julie Burchill reveals her trick for controlling her rage over virtue-signalling mid-wits like Gary Lineker.
- “What does Gary Lineker know about Zionism?” – This week’s instalment of Lineker vs Nuance involves his sharing a video produced by a group called ‘Palestine Lobby’, featuring a rat, writes Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator.
- “Gender-critical views banned from Pride celebration” – Stroud Pride has been accused of acting illegally for refusing to allow performers who hold “harmful views”, i.e., people who live in the reality-based community when it comes to sex and gender, reports Craig Simpson in the Telegraph.
- “Why cis women are bad at sports” – In the Critic, intersectional feminist and slam poet Titania McGrath explains the real reason women object to having to compete against biological men in women’s sports – cis women are just really bad at sport.
- “Trump ‘making plan to move a million Palestinians to Africa’” – The US is talking to Libya about taking in a million Palestinians, according to the Telegraph.
- “Donald Trump has set a trap for the Left… and they’ve just walked right into it” – The row over white refugees from South Africa plays straight into the President’s hands, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “Senior Tory embroiled in ‘furry’ sex scandal” – A senior Conservative politician accidentally sent a photograph of himself dressed as a dog being led on a leash to a group of work colleagues on WhatsApp, reveals the Mail.
- “Reform could save private schools at risk under Labour’s tax raid” – In the Telegraph, Richard Tice says emergency funding could mitigate the damage of Labour’s “catastrophic” VAT raid on private schools.
- “Private school exodus of 13,000 dwarfs ministers’ predictions” – The drop in private school pupil numbers, being blamed on VAT being added to fees, is the biggest since the Independent Schools Council began tracking the figures in 2012, reports the Sunday Times.
- “‘Home Guard’ to protect UK from infrastructure attack” – Thousands may be recruited into a civilian force to guard vital facilities such as airports and nuclear plants under new proposals by the Government, says the Sunday Times.
- “Publisher of New York Sun launches fresh bid to buy Telegraph” – Dovid Efune is reviving his bid for the Telegraph, this time backed by Jeremy Hosking, a Brexiteer businessman, according to the Telegraph.
- “The death of the university may soon be upon us. Good riddance” – ChatGPT has made coursework essays and online exams completely pointless, but progressive academics are still in denial, writes Len Shackleton in the Telegraph.
- “Salman Rushdie pulls out as Cali college commencement speaker over protest threats” – Salman Rushdie will no longer deliver the commencement address at Claremont McKenna College after some students objected that his presence might offend Muslims, reports the Independent.
- “London was defiled by yestreday’s hate march – an orgy of seething and loathing” – On X, Habibi has compiled a thread featuring some of the most offensive placards held up by pro-Palestinian protestors in yesterday’s march through the capital.
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Much admiration for your efforts Toby.
Tried to make a donation but it doesn’t seem to go through, sorry
Have you broken your computer, Dinger?
Here in France, folks still very much use cheques for everything. I like it. Simple, low tech, secure, very human, can be future-dated, can be posted, and they force one to keep a weather eye on the bank account.
I am just in the cheque generation, and I think might just start carrying a pen again.
Here in the UK we do not have bank branches in even quite large towns so paying them in is not easy. I tried to find an HSBC branch in the City of London to bank a small cheque but I could not find one.
Banks have online means to pay in cheques. the First Direct one does not work.
Banks outsource paying in to the Post Office. Our branch had run out of HSBC/First Direct paying in envelopes.
And so it goes on, and on, and on and now I’ve misplaced the bloody cheques.
Yeah, and throw away that calculator (or delete that app on your phone), an abacus does the job. And cheques? I had to cast my mind back to recall what they were. You are well named; about the right millennium.
For those having difficulty actioning your donation, please persevere:-
I also found it difficult, but if you move your PC curser around just below the designated point you can activate the usual T Bar curser with a right click on your mouse, and then by left clicking as usual at that point open up the slots where you can type in the necessary details.
Or maybe it’s left click, then right. But you get the idea.
My necessarily modest donation didn’t work either, for reasons I barely understand. Calling back 8am, in accordance with First Direct instructions…
Until you accept that publishing ‘officially unapproved’ results of research on German history, no matter how flawed they are according to someone’s opinion, is speech and not ‘hate’ which has to be prosecuted and punished, you really have no business calling your organization “Free Speech Union”, Mr Young.
A saying which featured here quite often during still more covidy times was (paraphrase) Only lies need to be protected by censorship because the truth can stand on its own.
So, what’s so wrong with the Holocaust that it cannot?
Well, some events are just too painful to discuss, aren’t they? So fraught with risk of immediate denunciation are they that one simply dare not.
But then, are they not precisely the subjects which ought to demand discussion?
Nature’s a bitch. Human nature, I mean…
Perhaps the discussion of today’s issues, still raw, still not totally consigned to the “must not touch” basket, must suffice in our search for restitution and – maybe for some – revenge.
?
Much to the chagrin of so-called “progressive forces”, censorship in the USA is generally illegal. In large parts Europe and in other parts of the anglosphere, it has been conceded that censorship is not only generally ok but absolutely required if only the topic that’s subject to it is considered “important enough” according to someone’s opinion. This means this battle is essentially lost and the only option which remains is more-or-less desparate rearguard actions whenever the self-proclaimed forces of good seek to extend the number of important topics where censorship is not only ok but required for another time. Most prominent current example: climate change. Equally prominent example of not that long ago: Anything COVID.
The only way to improve this situation is to declare – categorically – that censorship is not ok and certainly not required, absolutely regardless of the topic, with the USA serving as prime example for this. There’s a German saying It’s impossible to be just a little bit pregnant and likewise, it’s impossible to have just a little bit of criminalized speech, as that’s a cancer which will grow without bounds unless removed without a trace.
Completely agree. There should be no conditions where freedom of speech is concerned.
My comment was a rueful contemplation of reality.
Agree 100%
Quite right; the phrase ‘thin edge of the wedge’ comes to mind.
I don’t know the FSU’s precise position on that subject and their website doesn’t really say what their view is on what speech should be illegal, if any. Ian Rons said they largely agreed with the US Supreme Court “imminent lawless action” test: Brandenburg v. Ohio – Wikipedia
I don’t know for example whether they think that the Race Relations Act and the bits of the Equality Act that make certain kinds of speech illegal should be repealed.
That said, the FSU believes in more freedom of speech than most people do, and actually does something to protect it, so they deserve immense credit for that. I wish they were absolutists, but I wish for many things.
That said, the FSU believes in more freedom of speech than most people do, and actually does something to protect it, so they deserve immense credit for that. I wish they were absolutists, but I wish for many things.
I don’t think this absolutists term is really helpful, as it suggests something that’s bad/ harmful because it’s out of proportion and that’s exactly not the case here. People publishing opinions on something, any opinion on anything, is never harmful to anyone except people trying to keep control of some narrative by selecting which opinions may or may not be published on a certain topic. Anything beyond that are inherently unprovable nth order effects of which some people – those who want to keep control of some narrative – claim that they must surely exist, ie, that they really believe they ought to exist if they’re honest (impossible to judge) or random bullshit they’re making up to throw sand into other people’s eyes. Be that as it may, what cannot be proven mustn’t – and really cannot – be legislated against.
You may not be getting many up- or down-ticks for this because it’s very hard to understand (particularly the first sentence). Can you rewrite in a different way? (Not a flippant comment – I’m interested but don’t follow your syntax).
I can try.
Freedom of speech means David Irving had a right to publish the books he did publish and live his life in peace while doing so instead – as would have happened in Germany – spending a lifetime in jail for thought and opinion crimes (most recent German victim of this I know of is a 90+ year old woman with dementia who must be stopped from telling stories about her life she believes to be true). Something calling itself Free Speech Union ought to recognize that as such instead of reflexively taking the “But we certainly didn’t mean … gasp! …. Holocaust Denial!” knee whenever someone from the censorious left likens something else to the Holocaust (strictly verboten for their political opponents despite they’re doing this themselves all the time) to justify why it must also be censored.
That’s about the gut of it.
Just donated £50! We need Toby and the FSU like never before.
Well I thought racism was unlawful but here we are, surrounded by Woketards, obsessed with ticking those all-important DEI boxes. This is TUI and it is cringe. Celebrating being discriminatory. Now imagine if they announced an all white ground and cabin crew with such enthusiasm. I wonder what the reaction would be. But I guess in Clown World we all have to walk around apologizing for being born white, subordinating ourselves for the benefit of our ‘coloured cousins’;
”Airlines announce black-only flight crews at Gatwick airport during so-called ‘Black History Month’.
White people are the only race you can legally discriminate against in 2024.”
https://x.com/BFirstParty/status/1842248522529132952
Not just 2024 either. British Airways did the same last year. Meritocracy is a word no longer recognized in Clown World;
”British Airways has celebrated Black History Month by operating its first ever flight entirely staffed by black employees – covering cabin crew, pilots, ground staff, dispatchers and gate agents.
The flight operated from Bridgetown in Barbados to London’s Heathrow.
One crew member tweeted: “A very monumental day in BA’s history. So grateful to have been apart of this,” a British Airways employee tweeted along with the hashtags #WeMadeHistory #BlackHistory.“
Passenger Matthew Wilson tweeted: “I am on the first ever @British_Airways all black crew from #Barbados to #London. What pride! We clapped when the pilot announced this.#Diversity #RepresentationMatters”
https://ittn.ie/travel-news/british-airways-marks-black-history-month-with-first-entirely-black-crew/
Not merely racialist, but deeply patronising. I’ve worked with Africans who didn’t need special treatment because they were good at their jobs.
Exactly so. This aspect of what’s invariably considered to be racially healing policy is constantly forgotten. Most ‘minorities’ don’t need the ‘help’ of poorly educated woke whites to get through their lives.
Which month is White History Month?. Which month is Jewish History Month? Which month is Left Handed Autistics’ Month?
Left handed autist’s history month is whenever another (usually Lesbian) woman manages to get some of her male colleagues to make an unprovoked attack on that weird guy who’s standing there alone because we all know what “all men” “always want” and those who are alone are decidedly better targets.
But that the wokusts (rhymes with locusts) are a bunch of hypocritical liars who wouldn’t ever dream of holding themselves to the high standards they want to measure others against as this would lead to the “absurd conclusion” that they’re not better but actually worse than pretty much everybody else isn’t exactly news. They are, I can point to about 33 years of recurring experiences which keep proving this point, and I don’t believe this will stop anytime soon.
Quite surreal really that this even has to go to Court. A Minister cannot ever countermand a Commons Bill. Nor can the Prime Minister for that matter. Once it passes that is it, there is no way back other than rescinding the Bill.
The Government has very clearly broken the Law and should back down before they look even more stupid than they already do. It really is quite an achievement to manage to go from a party nobody wanted and barely anyone voted for to the most hated party in our history in such a short period of time. I predict that Labour will be all but wiped out in the Council elections in May unless it is an incredibly low turnout.