Nah

Freedom

[Max Klinger @MaxE2review]

The Arday saga has been so unbelievably embarrassing for Novara and their ilk. They tried so hard to cosplay as 'non-woke' once it went out of fashion, to pretend they were never woke to begin with. They put on fake working class accents, pretended to like football, sometimes flew england flags during the world cup, said stuff like 'it's ridiculous that we don't police antisocial behaviour', as if we'd forget it was them who claimed it was 'racist' to police antisocial behaviour for years at the height of peak-woke.

But then, 2020-style wokeness came back into fashion, momentarily, after Arday's death. And they absolutely capitulated, filming themselves doing hostage-style, tearful apologies, while they physically shake with remorse. Why? Because one or two of them dared to point out that Arday spoke a lot of crap. Which he did.

Hilarious. So degrading. They dropped their whole 'anti-woke' act the moment they received even the mildest pushback imaginable from their own side.

[Harry Cole @MrHarryCole]

Many years ago I emailed Jolyon Maugham for a right of reply to a fairly innocuous diary story gently teasing that his ginormous multimillion pound property had been photographed in a posh glossy magazine, resplendent with quotes from his Labour councillor wife. He had publicly discussed owning the landmark windmill in the past.

Back then Jolyon was a mere celebrity tax lawyer turned mild Brexit bore, famous only for bludgeoning a fox to death while dressed in his wife’s negligee, rather than the noted civil rights leader we know today. But it was always a struggle to find anyone from the Bar with a good word to say about his conduct or character.

The then QC immediately took to Twitter to publicly claim that I - and my then employer - were threatening to publish his home address in tomorrow’s edition as punishment for his legal work frustrating Brexit. Simply put: a lie. He just completely made it up.

All hell predictably broke loose on here with legions of his droogs piling in - he knew exactly what he was doing. Now I’m a big boy, I can take some social media loons, but here’s where it got weird…

Soon the red phone started ringing.

Editors, the executives, perhaps even proprietors, were being disturbed at the weekend and demanding to know why a reporter was harassing or threatening such an upstanding member of society. Cue: mild newsroom clucking.

God knows what shit he pulled, but it worked for the 100 word diary story that day, even though the POS was lying through his teeth. And Lord knows how many other times this dishonest and pernicious narcissist has attempted a similar ruse.

But I for one was not surprised to see the fox clubber’s reputation as a manipulative bully explode into the public eye this week. The warning signs were always there! And you wonder why they want to regulate the Press…

[Count Dankula @CountDankulaTV]

Even if you agree with the left on a certain serious subject, if you disagree with them on anything else they will refuse to work with or even be near you. Even if you offer help with something you both agree on. Willingly causing a detriment to something they claim to want to stop.

This proves that they do not actually give a single shit about solving the problems that all their activism is built around, they just want the praise and validation that comes with 'looking' like good and virtuous people for trying to solve the problem.

The overwhelming majority of leftist activism is entirely performative and is not done out of a desire to do good, but to look good.

[Jesse Singal @jessesingal]

Imagine publishing this and thinking it makes you look like the good guy.

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

When a little kid pipes up, “Mommy, why is the emperor naked?” We all know she’s just stating the truth.

If the emperor then offs himself, it seems stupid to blame the kid for merely saying what everybody knew but pointedly ignored and failed to acknowledge.

This is what leftists are doing to Emperor Arday. They're blaming the journalists for pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on

[Capel Lofft @CapelLofft]

The calls for censorship in wake of the Arday affair are absurd. Who on earth would decide if media coverage of some incident was 'disproportionate'? A state body presumably. If you can't see the scope for that being abused by governments and powerful people then you're a fool

[Helen Staniland @helenstaniland]

The good law project keeping the story alive by being outraged about the story being kept alive in no small part by their own actions in keeping the story alive.
https://t.co/a9l3EHk0vW

[Colin Wright @SwipeWright]

It is precisely in times of societal stress and turmoil that we need our leaders to remain calm and rational.

They can't just look back and say, "Yeah, it was a crazy time and we all lost our heads and said insane stuff!"

No, they failed the test and can never be trusted with power again.

[Silkie Carlo @silkiecarlo]

How is it that in all the BBC reporting on Jason Arday, the “fact checkers” and “misinformation experts” at BBC Verify - with their 60+ staff and £3m budget - have been nowhere to be seen…🤔

If you only followed BBC reporting on this you’d have no idea what’s actually going on

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Better fucking place?! Total disregard of 100m+ victims of global communism. Disgusting propaganda.

[Simon Fox @SimonFoxWriter]

If a 78-year-old Left Wing politician had been brutally murdered in their own home by a Far Right nutcase, the Establishment would have immediately told us EVERYTHING about the alleged murderer, and he would be headline news EVERY DAY. FOR WEEKS.

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

Because the media establishment, which has spent a full decade now demonising people like Ann, can't look in the mirror and admit their language and tone have been deeply irresponsible and dangerous. That would be incompatible with their self- image of Good People.

[Nah @ebortedl]

@Carra23 Italy were definitely not better than us

[(fan) Frank 🧠🇾🇪 @FrankEra_]

I watched Southgate throw the game against Italy when England went 1-0 up.

I expected Tuchel to be different but he’s just done the exact same tactically.

It’s unacceptable. Utter embarrassment.

[🙏🌧🌍 @godblesstoto]

The absolute last thing Ann Widdecombe would have wanted is for her death to be used as an excuse to clamp down on free speech.

Fuck off you opportunistic ghoul.

[Nick Timothy MP @NJ_Timothy]

Andy Burnham told the papers he wants to stop Labour’s plan to release rapists and paedophiles from prison early.

He had the chance to vote to stop it last night.

He didn’t even show up.

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

Scarcely a day passes without a Labour MP accusing their opponents of trafficking in mis- and disinformation. It's pure projection.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

What is going on with Labour and social media?

The Free Speech Union has been discussing internally whether Andy Burnham will be better or worse than Sir Keir Starmer when it comes to free speech.

We’ve concluded that he’ll be just as bad — if not worse.

Andy Burnham’s team has confirmed that he will push ahead with Starmer’s controversial social media ban for under-16s. We also know that the Technology Secretary, Liz Kendall, is looking into a potential ban on VPNs, which would put the UK in the same league as Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, led by Burnham ally and constituency neighbour Lisa Nandy, has also published a Green Paper, Watch This Space, which proposes forcing social media companies to prioritise the promotion of what the Government deems to be “trustworthy” news sources — namely content from public service broadcasters such as the BBC.

There is no evidence that Andy Burnham would abandon these plans when he enters Downing Street in just 13 days’ time.

This is a deeply concerning proposal and an extraordinary interference with freedom of association and free speech on social media — one that the Free Speech Union opposes wholeheartedly.

In another full-frontal assault on free speech and our right to engage in open political debate online, Labour’s Deputy Leader and close Burnham ally Lucy Powell wants to impose new legal duties through the Representation of the People Bill that would effectively treat private citizens as broadcasters and censor social media platforms during election periods.

This raises serious practical questions. Would individuals be prevented from expressing political views on social media during elections? The Free Speech Union also cannot see how such restrictions could realistically apply only to UK citizens. Surely they would have to extend to overseas users as well? President Trump and JD Vance would almost certainly have something to say about that.

This all seems to be part of Labour’s explanation for why it is struggling in the polls. Rather than recognising that people are concerned about issues such as mass uncontrolled migration, higher taxes, unemployment and soaring energy bills, Labour ministers appear to believe that voters are simply being misled by misinformation and disinformation on platforms such as X.

Last Thursday, Lisa Nandy flounced off X, citing an increase in abuse and the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

If Government ministers — particularly those responsible for the media — are concerned about misinformation, they should remain on the platform and challenge it. Trying to suppress it is not the answer.

As Louis Brandeis famously said, “The remedy to harmful speech is more speech, not enforced silence.”

Watch Free Speech Union General Secretary Lord Young below 👇

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

Latest horror from Scotland's tin-pot dictators -- a public health "tool" that Scots can use to rate how "safe" a place makes them feel. "Freedom of speech" included as a potential threat, alongside "anti-social behaviour", "hate speech", "inequality" and "lack of diversity".

[Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith]

1/ A Labour Party government passes mad legislation.

2/ The ‘Conservatives’ make vague grumbling noises against it.

3/ The ‘Conservatives’ regain power.

4/ The ‘Conservatives’ reverse nothing.

This is the political order of things.