Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

My client’s acquittal is a rare victory for free speech in the wake of Southport. Spiked 5th February 2025 Link You probably don’t know the name Jamie Michael, but if you care about freedom of speech, then you should. He is 46 years old. He used to be a Royal Marine. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. On 31 July 2024, Jamie made a video called ‘This is what I think’, which he posted on Facebook. In the video, Jamie discussed the stabbings in Southport two days earlier. He suggested forming community groups to help protect children from Islamist attacks. He also made comments about illegal migration and the dangers posed by ‘radicalised idiots’. He talked about recent ‘riots’ in Leeds and Manchester (referring to a riot in Harehills and a protest outside a police station in Rochdale). He said that the UK was ‘under attack’ and that Britons need to take action. In my view, it was clear what Jamie was talking about. He was expressing concern about unvetted migration into the UK. He was co...

I warned this would happen ---and now it's happening Matt Goodwin Feb 6 Well, I did warn you this would happen and now it’s happening.  Since coming to power only a few months ago, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has already moved to undermine free speech on multiple fronts. Labour has defanged an important law to protect free speech in our universities, a law I helped create. Since the Southport atrocities, the party’s also expanded the deeply Orwellian ‘non-crime hate incidents’, which will be used to try and control debate. Labour’s also sought to stigmatise political opposition to its project by describing millions of people, including those who ask tough questions about the rape gangs, as ‘far right’. And, meanwhile, the party’s said nothing at all about Labour activists and politicians openly calling to shut down GB News and “kill” Elon Musk’s X platform. And now, as I predicted, we learn that this deeply authoritarian Labour government is pressing ahead with a draconian new...

The Prime Minister and his cabinet pose a Keir and present danger to Britain Daily Telegraph  Link Labour this week hit its highest disapproval rating since taking the keys to Downing Street. According to the latest YouGov data, 64 per cent of British adults now disapprove of the Government – the highest figure since last July’s general election, against just 16 per cent who approve – the lowest figure to date. Granted, these aren’t the worst figures of all time. The previous Sunak administration plumbed the disapproval depths of 73 per cent following last summer’s D-Day debacle but Nigel Farage’s description of Sir Keir Starmer as “Blair without the flair” is fast appearing far too flattering. At this point in his premiership, Blair was still walking on water after his popularity rating reached 93 per cent in the wake of Princess Diana’s death, when The Independent breathlessly dubbed him: “The most popular democratic politician in history”. It took six years and the invasion of I...

Angela Rayner’s new ‘de facto blasphemy law’ is the kind of irresponsible ‘wokery’ that has sadly become a daily feature of this government Daily Telegraph  Link Deputy PM Angela Rayner is planning to set up an advisory council on Islamophobia, designed to tackle anti-Muslim discrimination Credit: Future Publishing Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. My friend Geoffrey reminded me a few days ago of that glorious exchange between the Red Queen and Alice in Through the Looking Glass. We were discussing the Labour government which, whatever your reservations, is certainly giving us a lot of practice when it comes to believing impossible things. Off the top of my head, a selection of their impossible things: 1) Rachel Reeves insists growth will spring from measures which kill growth. 2) Ed Miliband claims the headlong pursuit of net zero will see energy bills come down and G...

As consumer confidence stalls, Labour is tearing our fragile public finances apart Daily Telegraph  Link   Rachel Reeves last week claimed she is “fixing the foundations of the economy… creating the conditions for growth and investment”. Yet in last October’s Budget, with the tax burden already at a 70-year high, the Chancellor raised taxes by another £40bn per year – equivalent to putting 5p on the UK’s 20p-in-the-pound basic rate of income tax. Much of this huge tax increase actually falls on business, given Reeves’s £25bn rise in employer National Insurance contributions. Union-friendly regulation in Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will cost companies another £5bn per annum, with firms shelling out for an inflation-busting rise in the minimum wage too. Just the prospect of these measures ­– the tax rises and minimum wage increase start in April – has seen firms rapidly shed workers, with employment now falling at its fastest rate since the 2008 financial crisis. Since the B...

The truth is that voters only care about good policies, not meaningless invocations of long-dead institutions Daily Telegraph  Link This summer marks 25 years for me professionally poring over polling and focus group data. Events dictate popular opinion, so I have learned to be wary of predictions, preferring to set out plausible scenarios. Here is one such scenario now: we might be witnessing the last days of the Conservative Party. Senior Conservatives have grown up with the party, enjoyed recent landslides and the trappings of Government. They assume the party has strong roots, power, and relevance to voters. Reality check: nobody across Britain cares about the Conservative Party. Most voters know nothing of its history, never meet any activists, and could not name more than a small handful of current Tory MPs. The party is an irrelevance, culturally and institutionally.   The Conservatives have not plunged in the polls to the low 20s because voters are consciously “pu...

Disillusioned voters are shunning Labour in the Energy Secretary’s seat in Doncaster – and Reform say they know how to make it a landslide Daily Telegraph Link Patricia Houghton remembers how Doncaster was. “Oh, it was a beautiful town. Absolutely beautiful.” She clutches the sweets she’s bought in the indoor market, where at 2pm the traders are packing up. The concrete underfoot is wet and a chill hangs in the air. So does the smell of fresh fish from a nearby stall. Lightbulbs strung up around the place lend it little cheer: the scattering of tables sit empty, the cafes closed for the day. “They’ve ruined this town,” says shop worker Houghton, 65, despondent. “The streets are filthy, it wants a good clean-up. Decent people won’t come in.” Such complaints ricochet around this South Yorkshire former mining area: the sense that so much has been lost, and that those with the power to improve things have failed to do so. All three of Doncaster’s MPs are Labour. One is Ed Miliband, former ...