Are the UK police using hate crime and terrorist laws to curb free speech?

 

"Bruised But Vindicated" - Allison Pearson

Like the East German Stasi, UK police forces have been arresting people and raiding their homes and confiscating personal property, for tweets they have made or comments they have made on social media. Journalists and political activists have been frequently arrested because of comments they have made in relation to the conflict in Gaza. They've been charged under terrorist legislation for their remarks or accused of hate speech or hate crime.

Although this has been going on for quite some time, these arrests rarely get into the mainstream national press. Under successive governments, British society seems to have become increasingly more authoritarian and censorious with the police now arresting "thought criminals" for "thought crime". What's next? Room 101?

The Daily Torygraph, is now up in arms because one of their columnists, Allison Pearson, was visited by Essex Police and interviewed for allegedly "stirring racial hatred in a tweet a year ago." The police got a lot of flak over this incident from the press and from politicians and the case has now been dropped by Essex Police. They were accused of interfering with free speech and the right of a journalist to express an opinion. They were also accused of acting like political police and of creeping totalitarianism. Although Pearson's tweet had been factually incorrect on a number of points - she got the wrong police force and the wrong flag - she said that she felt "bruised but vindicated" and added: "Together we will fight these insanities one by one and put the onus onto the authorities to justify their absurd actions."

Some people have suggested that the police are using terrorist legislation and hate crime and hate speech to intimidate people and to silence people who are critical of Israel's actions in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. As with the case of Allison Pearson, the police often say that they're acting on a complaint which they have to investigate.

It seems to me that when you start to police people's views and opinions, you're going to get yourself in hot water and will get accused of trying to curb free speech and free expression which is supposed to be a cornerstone of any liberal democracy and intellectual freedom.  Free expression is also protected under Article 10 the Human Rights Act. These measures are also a cranks charter which can become weaponised by every disgruntled crank or organisation who have an axe to grind against any individual because they don't like what they say. To cause offence shouldn't be an offence. As George Orwell famously said, "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

When the Scottish government introduced its hate crime bill, 'The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021', the Scottish police said they'd been inundated with complaints, many of which, were anonymous and of a frivolous and vexatious nature. Critics warned the Scottish government that this was likely to happen. The Scottish police said they hadn't got the time or resources to investigate many of these complaints which often related to complaints about transgenderism.

Republican Senator says the U.S. will 'crush' Britain if it arrests Netanyahu.

 

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now a wanted man. If he sets foot in Britain, he faces arrest and extradition to The Hague to answer for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Yet, the U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, says America will 'crush' the UK economy if Britain upholds the rule of law and tries to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), have issued an international arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas leader, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Neither Israel or the U.S. are members of the ICC but Palestine is an ICC member.

Although Israel and the U.S. say they don't recognise the ICC, the Biden administration have been accused of hypocrisy on the issue of ICC jurisdiction, because the U.S. welcomed the court's arrest warrant for the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The ICC is recognised by 124 countries in the world including the UK, but Israel and the U.S. are not member states. The Biden administration maintain that the ICC "has no jurisdiction over this matter" and that Israel's conduct in Gaza has been lawful.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel last October, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), using weapons supplied by the U.S. Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, said that the ICC "has no credibility" and declared that the incoming Trump administration would take action against the "anti-Semitic bias" of the ICC and the United Nations. The legal duty to enforce the ICC arrests warrants is binding on all member states and members of the European Union.

ICC issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged crimes against humanity.

 

WANTED: Benjamin Netanyahu

Last week, The International Criminal Court (ICC), issued arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli defence secretary, Yoav Gallant, and the Hamas leader, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to Gaza and the attack on Israeli by Hamas.  

 As one might expect, Netanyahu's office said that the arrest warrants issued by the ICC against him and Gallant, were "anti-Semitic" and said Israel: "rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions." Israel is not a member of the ICC and denies committing war crimes in Gaza and also rejects the court's jurisdiction. 

Although tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including women and children, since the Hamas attack on 7 October, the U.S. President Joe Biden, described the warrants against the Israeli leaders as "outrageous." Like Israel, the U.S. is not a member of the ICC, but it does support the warrant the ICC issued for the arrest of Vladimir Putin for deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. 

When Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia earlier this year, he wasn't arrested under the ICC warrant because it wasn't enforced by Mongolia who are a member of the ICC. 

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli leaders, sent a "terrible message." 

Ireland, France and Italy, have said they would arrest Netanyahu if he came to their countries. When the Irish Taoiseach, Simon Harris, was asked if police would arrest the Israeli Prime Minister in Ireland, he said: "Yes, absolutely. We support international courts and we apply their warrants." 

The UK government has been reluctant to confirm whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said it "wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment" on the processes involved as the ICC is independent, although the UK is a member of the ICC. A spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer said that the government would "fulfil its legal obligations" in relation to the arrest warrants. Emily Thornberry, who chairs Labour's foreign affairs committee in parliament, told Sky News, "If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC...' 

Although Hungry as an E.U. member state would be required to enforce the arrest warrants, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, said that he would invite Netanyahu to visit Hungry and would guarantee that the arrest warrant would "not be observed." Some people believe that Netanyahu could avoid arrest by claiming diplomatic immunity. 

Israel claims that the Hamas leader Al Masri was killed earlier this year, but the ICC said it would still be issuing the arrest warrant because his death had not been confirmed.

Farage excluded from farmers rally.

 

Nigel Farage - Leader Reform UK

Although many British farmers voted to leave the E.U. in 2016, they're now beginning to realise that they were sold a pup with Brexit by right-wing loonies.

Nigel Farage, dressed in his customary tweed flat cap and Barbour jacket, was excluded from the recent farmer’s rally because of the role he played in Brexit that resulted in trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that undercut farmers and cut their subsidies. As the former leader of UKIP and now leader of Reform UK, Farage campaigned for Britain to leave the E.U.

Jeremy Squirrell, a Suffolk arable and poultry farmer who attended the event, said he would have "frogmarched" Farage and others including the former Sun columnist 'cockroach' Katie Hopkins, "off the site", adding: "They taint our just cause with conspiracy, lies, hateful comments and deceit." Sheep farmer, Sarah Shuffell, said Farage's presence was a "PR car crash for farming."

In a confidential report, the bankers to the rich, Coutts, described Farage has a 'disingenuous grifter" who is "seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists."

 

Who are the "economically inactive"?

 

Prince Andrew

We've been hearing a lot recently from Starmer-oid's Labour government about idle and indolent Brits who are on state benefits and are economically inactive.

Does Starmer-oids Labour government consider Prince Andrew "economically inactive" and bone idle? What does Prince Andrew contribute to British society and what does he do for a living? It has been reported in the press that he now looks after the Royal corgis.

In 2015, I can remember reading in the newspapers that his father, the legendary sponger and gaffe-prone Prince Philip, had visited a community centre in East London where he asked a group of women volunteers, "Who do you sponge off."

Are people who live off investment income - the labour of others - economically inactive? Are landowners who live off rents, economically inactive? The Royal Family are the biggest parasites, yet they live a life of dignified otiosity off the backs of the British taxpayer. What purpose do the Royal Family really serve? Hasn't the House of Windsor just become an expensive and embarrassing soap opera that we can well do without?

Ridley Scott criticised for cutting scenes in Gladiator II featuring pro-Palestinian actress.

 

May Calamawy

The film director Ridley Scott has come under fire for significantly cutting scenes in Gladiator II that feature the Egyptian-Palestinian actress, May Calamawy.

Some have speculated that the decision to side-line Calamawy is politically motivated and that political pressure within the film industry has been brought to bear on Scott, because the actress has been vocal in her support for Palestine.

Calamawy's reduced screen time as left many surprised and disappointed given that early promotional stills and reports had placed Calamawy's character as central to the movie. This had led to calls for the film to be boycotted. Neither Ridley Scott or the studio have been prepared to comment on the controversy.

What REALLY Happened in Amsterdam?

This is a good report on DDN, but Richard Sanders doesn't say why it is that British media outlets and some British politicians are prepared to spread lies and disinformation about what really happened in Amsterdam on 8 November.

Sky News actually broadcast two versions of this event and finished up deleting both reports. The Amsterdam police have already said that Israeli ultra-football hooligans caused the violence and yet we continue to be told that these thugs were the victims of anti-Semitic violence by pro-Palestinian protestors. They were actually attacking Dutch citizens and set fire to a taxi and we're told this was a 'pogrom' against Jews or something akin to 'Kristallnacht'.

Have Britain’s media outlets become a timid propaganda mouthpiece for the far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu?

Trump appoints 'pro-Moscow' Tulsi Gabbard as his national security advisor.

 

Sebastian Gorka

Trump has appointed 'pro-Moscow' Tulsi Gabbard as his national intelligence chief and security advisor. Sir Richard Dearlove, the former boss of MI6, says this is a maverick appointment and that Gabbard has no previous experience of working in intelligence or security.

I've never heard of Tulsi Gabbard but I certainly know of Sebastian Gorka. British-born Gorka, is being tipped as her deputy national security advisor. Gorka has been associated with the alt-right conspiracy Breitbart blog and worked for Fox News. He was a colleague of 'scruffy' Steve Bannon, Trump's former official adviser, and worked for him at Breitbart.

Critics have questioned the credibility of Gorka's PhD qualification and his expertise in the field of foreign policy. Many think he's a bullshitter with dodgy qualifications, so he should fit in very well in the Trump administration.

In January 2017, Gorka was appointed Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Strategist in the White House, but he failed to obtain security clearance necessary for work on security issues. He remained in the job for just seventh months and was removed shortly after the sacking of Steve Bannon. He then became a spokesman and salesman for a fish oil supplement. Gorka then became a shock jock on Salem Radio hosting America First with Sebastian Gorka. 

Despite being accused of having links with European far right organisations with Nazi sympathies, such as the Hungarian far-right organisation called ‘Vitezi Rend’, Congressman Trent Franks, Co-chair of the Israeli Allies Caucus, called Gorka "the staunchest friend of Israel and the Jewish people."

 

Oxford and class prejudice.

 

Bodleian Library Oxford

I was member of the Bodleian library in Oxford in the early 1980s. I think we had to swear or give an undertaking that we wouldn't start fires within the precincts or within the vicinity of the library. The building is very impressive and huge but I didn't find the library very accessible or the staff very helpful or friendly. It isn't easy to use.

One particular day, I heard a fellow student, tell his history tutor that he'd stopped going in the Bodleian Library. When the tutor asked him why, he told him that he always felt humiliated because some staff members belittled him because of his Brum accent. I heard the tutor say to him, "Let me give you some advice young man. The next time you go in the Bodleian Library, walk in as though you own the place. These people can smell fear." I fell about laughing when I heard this but I thought it was extremely sound advice.

They do have a thing about social class and accents at Oxford, it's quite extraordinary and pathetic. An American would be far more at home at Oxford than somebody with a provincial English accent. Yet, Derek Robinson who taught economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, was a Yorkshire lad from Barnsley. This son of a miner, seems to have had no difficulty fitting in to college life. A colleague once told him that he'd observed how Derek's Yorkshire accent had become more pronounced and stronger the longer he'd been at Oxford. Robinson told him that you had to define your own territory in this life. I think he was absolutely right.

The English Marxist, philosopher, literary theorist and critic, Terry Eagleton, taught at Oxford University for many years. Having been born in Salford doesn't seem to have been a barrier to Eagleton either socially or academically. I believe Eagleton's lectures at Oxford were very popular and so we're the lectures of the historian, A J.P. Taylor, who was born in Southport.

All his life, Taylor liked to be controversial and he attributed his failure to win a Balliol scholarship to the examiners' prejudice against a candidate with "no manners and a rough Lancashire accent." He refused to accept that he'd caused offence during the interview, when he'd been asked what a "radical of his persuasion would like to see happen to Oxford", he replied "blow it up." It sounds like a good answer to me. I think John Ruskin held similar sentiments.

'Migrant hotel king' raked in £90m last year from housing migrants & asylum seekers.

 

'Migrant Hotel King' - Graham King 

A former caravan park owner and disco tycoon from Canvey Island, Essex, made over £90m last year from lucrative Home Office government contracts, housing asylum seekers.

Graham King of Clear Springs Ready Homes, who houses migrants in hotels, unused military barracks and flats, is on course to become the first immigration industry billionaire. According to The Times, a company report shows that it made a profit of £91.2 million last year and paid £90 million in dividends to a company controlled by King, "mainly to the provision of accommodation, support and transport to asylum seekers."

King who is estimated to have a personal net worth of £750 million was catapulted onto Britain's rich list, after cashing in on the flood of recent migrant arrivals into Britain. Clear Springs had an income increase of £400 million in just 12 months. The 57-year-old, "migrant hotel king", and slum landlord, was ranked as the 173rd richest person in Britain in the Sunday Times Rich List for 2024. The British taxpayer is paying King £8 million per day to house asylum seekers.

In 2021, two of Clear Springs sites in Wales and Kent, were described has being 'decrepit, 'impoverished' and 'run-down'. Inspectors described one of the sites, Penally Camp in Wales, as 'decrepit' and filthy. Inspectors claimed that around a third of the residents who were consulted claimed to have mental health issues and declared there had been "fundamental failures of leadership and planning." In 2023, 70 people, including children, slept outside two Clear Springs-run hotels in the capital after claiming they had been put in small rooms without enough beds.

Having made a fortune out of the British taxpayer who are paying to accommodate asylum seekers, Graham King has been able to fund his family's "globe-trotting holidays and Alpine ski trips." He's been able to privately educate his son and daughter at a "£44,000-a-year boarding school." King's daughter, Catalina, who is studying to be an artist, is selling £10 prints which bear the slogan, "Will trade racists for refugees

Angela Rayner declares £3,550 in free clothing from Lord Alli.

 

I can't quite make my mind up whether Lord Waheed Alli is Labour's ATM machine, its fairy godmother, or he's running a benevolent society for Labour big wigs.

Not long ago, it was revealed that Angela Rayner and her swain and 'soulmate', Sam Tarry, had stayed five nights free of charge at Lord Alli's £2m apartment in Manhattan. It has now been revealed that in June, Angie accepted free clothing from Lord Alli amounting to £3,550.

Many people might wonder why Lord Alli is so generous with his money and why he buys so many gifts for Labour politicians. It stands to reason that you don't become rich by giving your money away.

Some people might think that Angie treats Lord Alli like a sugar daddy or milch cow, but she's  said that Lord Alli never asks for anything nor does he get anything in return for his generosity.

Both Angela Rayner and Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, have registered these free clothing donations as "office support." In September, the prime minister, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, said they would no longer accept free clothing donations.