We hear so much bad news about censorship coming out of the United Kingdom that it’s almost shocking when something good happens instead.
That good news is a retreat from harassing innocent people for posting online too freely for the taste of British police enforcers.
In the big picture, the change in policy by the Metropolitan Police Service is but a minor tactical withdrawal in the pursuit of a censorship agenda that is otherwise proceeding on all fronts. It’s not so minor for people like, say, comedy writer Graham Linehan.
Several weeks ago, Linehan was arrested at Heathrow Airport by five armed officers.
“I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online.” His sin was posting a few tweets critical of transgender activists.
The charges against Linehan have been dropped.
And from now on, says the Met, it will stop investigating “non-crime hate incidents.” A spokesperson explains that the commissioner “doesn’t believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates.…”
The “non-crime hate incidents” will still be logged, though.
The policy of harassing Britons for cranky words has been softened before, by the Tories. When Labour came in, the new government promptly hardened things again.
And further caution: Met policy is not government policy.
So this particular hammer for banging upon speakers daring to offend the easily offendable could come swinging down again at any moment.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Firefly
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2 replies on “Quit Banging on Brits”
The UK cannot be saved.
The next required general election is not until 15 August 2029. The Labour Party knows that it is deeply unpopular and would lose any early election; only civil war or a terror of it will bring such an election. An early election (or civil war) would not be won by liberals, but by right-wing populists or by those posturing as right-wing populists.
The Kinks saw it coming;:
All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old
But there’s no England now