Liam Thornton

High release point 🏏 Deo Spes Mea

[David Betz @DavidBe31099196]

A summary of Britain as of July 2026: Things are bad, sure, but with David Brent now front man as PM of a government run by Hope not Hate creatures it’s going to get a lot worse.

[Wisden @WisdenCricket]

Legendary West Indian all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers has passed away at the age of 89.

#Cricket

[Sam Ashworth-Hayes @SAshworthHayes]

There's a common thread that runs through the way police officers arrested Henry Nowak when his killer invoked "racism", the domestic propaganda unit wheeled out after terror attacks, the attempts to enforce Islamic blasphemy law, the cover-up of the grooming gangs, the clamp down on free speech, and it runs something like this:

The revealed preference for Britain's establishment is for unprecedented levels of migration. The repeatedly revealed preference of the population is for massive reductions in this number. Migration has been pushed on this country against its will.

The result is friction. Friction between people, friction between groups, increasingly sectarian politics as people begin to see the decision of 'who governs' as an existential one. And where there's enough friction, there's fire.

The way the state handles this is to refocus itself on reducing friction, rather than upholding what the law might actually say. A low-level counter-insurgency against its own people. A crime against an individual is unfortunate; a crime against a group is intolerable. Imperial style policing, brought home.

The difference that gives rise to the 'two-tier' element is the size of the groups involved. The 2010 and 2024 riots showed that the state would struggle to deal with any large scale disorder; by definition, any significant dissent from the majority would give rise to this disorder.

The way that the state has chosen to handle this is to treat minority groups with a certain deference and lenience, making "small" concessions with relatively limited impact that buy a degree of peace, and to treat the majority with utter ruthlessness. The Harehills riot saw the police retreat; the Southport riots less than two weeks later saw maximal deployment of state capacity and a "shared understanding" that the courts would do the bidding of Government with quick, tough sentences. This is not "policing by consent" in the old Peelian model. That was not "the public must consent to the law being enforced", but that the police would try to win the trust of the community, singular. Now there are communities, plural, with conflicting views and interests, and the result is that policing has retreated from what it sees as contested ground.

At times, the new reality is even stated bluntly. The National Police Chiefs Council states that its goal is "producing equality of policing outcomes", and that this "does not mean treating everyone 'the same' or being 'colour blind' (racial equality)".

From monitoring what you say online to reorienting policing around the management of "tensions" between groups to endless efforts to promote the idea of diversity as a good, or play down any identity-based element in incidents with a majority victim. Two-tier policing is a function of numbers. And it is by this point completely clear that the Establishment has committed to this strategy so completely that it cannot reverse it without totally discrediting itself.

[Sam Ashworth-Hayes @SAshworthHayes]

"Politicising" an event is just code for "drawing conclusions we don't like".

What you're meant to do is pretend this stuff is lightning from a clear blue sky, freak happenstance, and that it all just shows how diversity is our real strength. Not point out that our approach to managing the costs of that diversity led police to handcuff an innocent, dying man begging for help.

[Benedict Spence @BenedictSpence]

Keir Starmer is a malignant bastard for trying to frame Henry Nowak’s murder as being a story of “the horror of knife crime.” A complete and utter bastard.

[Dan Salt @Danjsalt]

This is sociopathic

Sikhs have not been part of our island story for centuries except for a few randoms

The pro migration crowd are becoming ever more deluded as they attempt to fight the now inevitable collapse of multiculturalism

[Sam Ashworth-Hayes @SAshworthHayes]

UK state ideology would be hard to better summarise than a police officer arresting a dying boy begging for help over accusations of 'racism' while his murderer watches on, free.

There are tiers to the system, and Henry was at the bottom.

[Guy Dampier @dampierguy]

Something deeply late-Soviet about reacting to this awful story by focusing on "the horror of knife crime". Trapped in a mental box, entirely unable to process what has actually happened because it challenges his worldview.

[NPRG @CptHastings1916]

After Nowak, the whole post-Macpherson system of targets, quotas and "disparate impact" needs to be totally dismantled. The report's specific repudiation of colour-blind policing must itself be specifically repudiated, and colour-blind policing must be embedded in law.

[Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick]

I hope Hampshire Police and the CPS have a good explanation as to why Digwa’s brother and father have not yet been charged.

His mother is being sentenced soon for removing the murder weapon from the crime scene.

If his brother and father knew Henry had been stabbed, are they not accessories too?

The brother called 999 to falsely report Henry for racially attacking the murderer.

The father physically detained a dying Henry until the police arrived.

None of them informed the police that Henry had been stabbed. All watched him die, handcuffed, on the ground.

[Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick]

WARNING: Incredibly distressing footage.

The bodycam footage has finally been released of Henry Nowak’s last moments.

He was the victim, but treated like a criminal.

“I can’t breathe” he says, over and over again.

Instead of helping him the police arrest him on false charges of racism.

Harrowing.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion he was treated differently because he was white.

[Liam Thornton @liamwthornton]

@surreycricket Most dire batting performance I’ve ever seen. Atrocious.

[Tom Jones @93vintagejones]

Were the races reversed, this could be a story from the Jim Crow South that became a cause célèbre of the Civil Rights movement.

[Alex Dale @typofoto]

It’s nice isn’t it. The screaming turmoil.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

The party is over @Keir_Starmer.

Resign.

[David Frost @DavidGHFrost]

"Businesses are allowed to stay in private hands but with so many instructions, targets and, increasingly, price controls that [Britain] could perhaps best be described as a capitalist command economy."

Superb piece from @cjsnowdon in @TheCriticMag.

https://t.co/FEwgtxhpoF

[Liam Thornton @liamwthornton]

As mid life crises go, this has got to be up there.

[Tony Diver @Tony_Diver]

Interesting choice of shot in No10’s new PR video, in which Rachel Reeves looks like she is conducting a wedding ceremony

[Ed West @edwest]

Missed this at the time. This is why everything looks like it's crumbling around you https://t.co/HDgJVohaeB

[Bovril-Gesellschaft @BovrilG]

The Greens seem to be losing quite a lot of the seats they went into this election with even though they’re substantially gaining net. I know people have been talking for years about the Green ground game and focus on local issues and contrasted this favourably with Reform’s lack of seriousness, but if most of your voters think they’re supporting the I Like Bees And Dislike New Houses In My Village Party and you suddenly turn into the Prepare For The Communist Ummah Party you’re going to have issues.