Off the Party Line

Off the Party Line - Faith, Free Speech and unfashionable views - check us out on YouTube!

[Ameer Kotecha @Ameer_Kotecha]

What’s most extraordinary about the whole interview for me is, issue after issue, how totally ignorant Campbell is. He is not even aware of the College of Policing and NPCC document warning officers that being “colour blind” was not enough - that document was all over media commentary for about a fortnight after Henry Nowak’s murder. Alastair thinks it’s fake news or something obscure that Konstantin has “found” to catch him out.

This man is the co-presenter of the biggest politics podcast in the country and he really doesn’t have a clue. It’s all just unoriginal vibes-based slop and “here’s something I wrote in my diary” back when I was important. A bit concerning really given the number of people who rely on the podcast to stay informed about contemporary issues

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@cjsnowdon Has a wheelie suitcase

[Daniel Priestley @DanielPriestley]

I’m not defending billionaires. I’m defending the economic system that protects the freedom to own property and to compete in the market.

I’m not worried about billionaires, I’m worried about big government destroying the economy. Billionaires make money through voluntary trade and achieve wealth through voluntary investment. Governments get their money through forced extraction and spend it through box-ticking bureaucrats.

A billionaire must create a win-win to get money and we know this creates an economically richer society - albeit unevenly distributed. Government can extract from the productive and do unproductive things with the money - which creates an economically poorer society.

Neither is ideal but I’d chose an unequal wealthy society over an equal impoverished one any day.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

The Guardian, in its role as representative of the establishment Left, apparently wants its readers to believe that free speech is inherently right wing.

I will never understand why the Left insists on ceding this ground entirely, but while it does, that does not mean it is true that free speech is right wing. Utterly bizarre behaviour.

@SpeechUnion @toadmeister

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

Earlier today a @Guardian journalist sent me this query:

Dear Toby Young,

I'm Aisha Down, a journalist at the Guardian. I'm getting in touch because we're planning to report that the US state department is considering a grant of $5m to Free Speech Union, your organisation, as part of a new grant-making scheme, and wanted to give you the chance to comment. We would appreciate receiving your comment by 14:30.

We are considering reporting the following:

- The grant to the FSU is part of a package to Maga aligned groups that former US officials have condemned as a misuse of public money to seek influence over foreign politics and interfere with democracy.

- It is rare for the US government to fund partisan political organisations in western countries.

- These grants are likely to pose a challenge to Andy Burnham, who has said he will be "very upfront" with Trump about any disagreements.

- These grants - including to your organisation - are "sole source" grants, meaning they are to be awarded without any competitive process. This is unusual for a highly regulated process which usually requires grantees to show they have a track record for handling funds and clear plans for the money.

- This lack of process has been criticised as "outrageous and absurd" by former US officials, and as "gross incompetence" and "horrible stewardship" of US taxpayer money.

- Your organisation does not appear to have a track record of handling grants of this amount.

- We describe your organisation as "a rallying point for “anti-woke” grievance" which "frequently allies itself with rightwing causes" and say that you, Toby Young, appeared on Rees-Mogg's GB news show earlier this month to warn about 'Soviet-style' censorship in the UK.

- The state department says that its grant to FSU will “support campaigns promoting free speech and countering digital overregulation across the UK, Europe and Australia”. The sole-source award is justified “due to FSU’s global network of free speech activists”.

We would like to fully and fairly reflect your point of view and look forward to your statement. Thank you,

--
Aisha Kehoe Down
Senior Tarbell Fellow,
Guardian News and Media

I replied as follows:

It sounds like a pretty garbled story.

Free Speech Union International, which is the umbrella group that FSU UK, FSU Australia, FSU New Zealand, FSU Canada, FSU South Africa and FSU Brazil sit within, has expressed interest in applying for grant funding from the US State Department. This would be to promote the right to freedom of expression in those countries, which, far from being a partisan cause, is a universal human right. But it hasn't submitted a formal application and, consequently, has been awarded no grant from the State Department or any other branch of the US Government.

You've mischaracterised the FSUs, all of which are non-partisan organisations that defend people who get into trouble for exercising their right to feee speech regardless of their political views. The FSU UK, for instance, is currently paying for the legal defence of a protestor who's being prosecuted for holding up a sign saying "I support Palestine Action", as well as a protestor for wearing a t-shirt at a Unite the Kingdom rally for saying "Fuck Islam Christ is King". Yes, we helped Lucy Connolly appeal her sentence -- we thought a prison sentence of over two-and-a-half years for a single tweet was excessive -- but we also tweeted yesterday, condemning the arrest of Heather Herbert and offering our support. Yes, we came to the defence of Nigel Farage when he was debanked, but we've also offered to help the Canary in its recent debanking case. So to describe the FSU UK as a "rallying point for anti-woke grievance" is misleading. We are a rallying point for those who want to defend the right to freedom of expression.

Best,

Toby

The @Guardian then ran this story:

https://t.co/1l4K0PABvM

You be the judge of whether you think this is good journalism.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

There’s such an obvious solution to this problem that nobody seems to want to talk about…

[J Stewart @triffic_stuff_]

Jess Phillips has been utterly exposed as a fraud in this brutal Channel 4 interview.

The supposed champion for safeguarding women and girls just admitted she “absolutely understood” and “absolutely knew” that some r*p!sts, sex abusers and domestic abusers would walk free early under Labour’s scheme.

When pressed on why she and her party voted against the Conservative amendment to exclude these exact offenders from early release, her only defence? “There’s a prison crisis.”

Yes, Jess, there is but that’s no excuse for letting predators out sooner. The “safeguarding minister” shouldn’t be shrugging it off.

The interviewer confronted her with devastated victim statements. Phillips called the handling “appalling” and whined that some victims shouldn’t even be getting those letters. The interviewer fired back: “But that’s exactly what you voted for!”

Typical Jess Phillips: never taking responsibility. Just like when she blamed others in her party for “turning a blind eye” to grooming gangs (but never herself), or when she resigned from the Starmer government claiming she couldn’t get anything done only to throw him and the rest under the bus the moment it was politically convenient. It’s a clear pattern with her.

The same woman who was warned by the shadow justice minister that this would come back to haunt every single one of them. When the interviewer asked “does it haunt you now?”, Phillips coldly replied: “It doesn’t haunt me.”

Absolutely shameful, but entirely predictable from Jess Phillips.

Women and girls deserve so much better.

[Luke Johnson @LukeJohnsonRCP]

This is what foreigners think of us. It’s as if those in government passing these demented rules/laws are actively working for our enemies. Starmer will surely go down as one of our most pathetic and damaging ever Prime Ministers.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

Someone needs to get a fresh lettuce prepared

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

He keeps getting worse somehow.

He's a walking cliche. He's still thinks Thatcher is the root of all evil and we need more council houses, more union power, more nationalisation and bigger Government.

He's fighting imagined 40 year old battles. He has no clue.

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

He keeps getting worse somehow.

He's a walking cliche. He's still thinks Thatcher is the root of all evil and we need more council houses, more union power, more nationalisation and bigger Government.

He's fighting imagined 40 year old battles. He has no clue.

[Anton Liubich @antonliubich]

Something load-bearing just cracked in the European house.

Mario Roggero, 72, watched three robbers storm his family jewelry store — knife out, his wife and daughter as hostages.

Yesterday Italy’s highest court made his sentence final: 14 years and 9 months. At 72, that is a life sentence with a different label. His family also owes €480,000 — to the robbers’ families.

The courts’ reasoning deserves attention, because it is worse than the verdict. The judges ruled the robbery was “completely concluded” when Roggero fired. Concluded — by whose clock? By the robbers’. The law chose as its decisive moment the exact second when three criminals felt like winners, walking away with what a family earned over decades of honest work. The victim fought back at the first moment he was physically able to — seconds earlier he had a knife at his family. For the court, that moment came too late. For the robbers, it came right on schedule.

A doctrine of self-defense that expires the instant the criminal turns his back is not a limit on violence. It is an escort service for stolen goods.

And the standard alternative — “he should have called the police”? In Italy, robbery victims recover their property in 3.4% of cases. In Florence, prosecutors opened 11,000 burglary cases over three years and identified a suspect in 206. So the honest advice to Roggero was: stand still, watch the men who just threatened your wife walk away grinning, and file a report into a 97% void.

A state that cannot catch robbers, forbids resisting them, and fines the victim half a million euros has not failed to protect property rights. It has switched sides.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@not_our_guy ‘Pastor John Piper’ is helpful, ‘John Piper’ is a pietistic leftist.

Can’t imagine what just ‘Piper’ will be?

[Nick Dixon @NickDixon]

Interviews with Lineker, hiring former Hope Not Hate directors…Burnham will outdo Starmer as the most hated PM of all time.

A virtually unelected, radical leftist who will do massive damage.

The only good news is he might also destroy the Labour Party.

[Katy Faust @Katy_Faust]

Single Chinese man commissions triplet babies. Doesn't show up when they're born. Eventually sends two sketchy guys in a black SUV to collect them. Mother refuses.

She doesn't hear from him for a year and a half.

One triplet dies from RSV complications. She mourns like the grieving mother she is.

She and her husband are now fighting for custody. But he filed a challenge and now the babies are in foster care.

Welcome to the global baby trade. #Surrogacy.
https://t.co/2efoM6U1FC

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@TheSimonEvansX “Oh NOW we’ll see what people REALLY” it had been happening all day, amazing the high horses people will mount. As if his timeline didn’t contain exactly the people and responses he was sarcastically pretending didn’t exist.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@TheSimonEvansX https://t.co/qCa10F8ScW

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@freddiesayers They…have been? @SpeechUnion has offered help? Surprised at this from you, Freddie.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@freddiesayers They…have been? @SpeechUnion has offered help? Surprised at this from you, Freddie.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@RichardHanania There is none. And the best and brightest continue to leave.

[Dave Brennan (Brephos) @BrephosUK]

"Kill my baby or I'll sue you"

https://t.co/61KiQeLotN

Sorry did I say that bit out loud?

I meant to say "love is love" or "equality" or "progress" or something.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

@_HelenDale At this point just take their first statement and it's going to end up literally word for word the opposite.

[Off the Party Line @OffthePartyLine]

This whole Gary Stevenson thing is proving the phrase "The Right thinks the Left is wrong. The Left thinks the Right is evil."

All the viral clips are people patiently, calmly, ok sometimes with an edge of frustration, explaining things in practical terms to Gary because they see he doesn't understand them. Think the @DanNeidle and @DanielPriestley clips.

Then the response? "But there's a problem here, don't you care? I care. That's why I'm doing this"

How do we overcome this?

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

The socialist regards society much as a child regards supper: he notices with great precision who received the largest slice, while remaining curiously uninterested in who rose at dawn to bake the thing.

Socialists always imagine themselves at the table, never in the kitchen.