Tag Archives: Hate crime

Alison Saunders admits 17% hate crime failure

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Some months ago I was referred by a reader to this very short address to camera by Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Britain. I watched it, formed my personal opinion, but was unable to see how it could be relevant to this blog.

Then came the speech by Andrew Norfolk, featured on this blog last week. Suddenly Ms Saunders’ announcement gained an alarming relevance.

The first sentence expresses an opinion which almost seems to suggest that parliament, in addition to charging her with the mechanics of prosecution, has granted her the authority also to operate on her personal tastes. I hope I’m wrong.

Her second sentence boasts 83% success in prosecutions. That equals a 17% failure rate.

What is a hate crime? The official Metropolitan Police site has a definition. It includes these two immortal sentences –

Though what the perpetrator has done may not be against the law, their reasons for doing it are. This means it may be possible to charge them with an offence.

We are looking at thought crime. We are looking at officialdom being able to make up law on the hoof.

Harking back again to Andrew Norfolk’s speech, I recall reading anecdotal accounts (I am in no position to check), of a father who tried to recover his under-age daughter from the clutches of a grooming gang, and police arrived to arrest him. Was he charged with a hate crime? On the above definition he could have been. I actually find myself having sympathy here for the police officers whose bosses have u-turned them from what they know to be right.

Suppose you played a new game, one which allowed you but not your opponent to change any or all rules as you wished, and you still lost 17% of the time. Some might say that not only was it a bad game but that you were not very good at it.

Tommy Robinson and free speech

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I read on line an article written by Douglas Murray for the Gatestone Institute. It unfavourably compared the official treatment of Tommy Robinson and Anjem Choudary. I found it interesting because, whatever you may think of either of these gentlemen, the one absolute concerning the law is that everyone should be equal under it. This article suggests that in some respects they are not.

Within days I spotted that Tommy Robinson had delivered a talk at the Oxford Union, and although this happened in November 2014 I had not picked it up at the time. I felt rather ashamed of myself, because as a fervent believer in free speech I like to support it by heralding it on this blog. Well, better late than never …

There was also a Q&A session, but you won’t find it here, Robinson holds the floor for this entire video. Occasionally you overhear protest chanting from outside the hall, but inside the audience listens in decorous silence.

Let me get the rhetor stuff out of the way. Robinson could structure a little more clearly, but otherwise this is what public speaking should be. It is sometimes slightly garbled, but transparently sincere. He shoots from the hip a message that he wants to get across, and he sets about it without affectation or pretence. You can disagree with every word he utters, but I don’t believe that you can justifiably accuse him of hiding behind a false persona.

I tip my hat to the Oxford Union for this dramatic and excellent example of free speech. Providing a platform for views you might expect to find abhorrent, is by far the best way to challenge them.

I don’t think I have anything to add. I simply commend the whole talk. You may hate him throughout; you may not. Either way, I suspect you will come to understand better. I did.

The Q&A is pretty good too.

Bill Callaghan has a speech to speak, O

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Bill Callaghan is a Yeoman of the Guard at the Tower of London. He also is in demand as an after-dinner speaker. Videos of his tours have been posted on line and received hits in seven figures; and the man we apparently have to thank is American tourist Jerry Clark, who wielded a camcorder for the benefit of us all.

You may think that addressing tourists at the Tower of London is very different from delivering speeches from a lectern, and so it is. After-dinner speaking is likewise different. But all of them have in common the need to grab and hold an audience’s attention while saying stuff (stop me if I’m getting too technical). Shall we see how Callaghan does it?

Well there’s an opening to be remembered! Of course you could never open a speech like that from a lectern, or an after-dinner speech, or a sermon from a pulpit. But it’s all right when you’re addressing a bunch of elderly foreign … er…

  • 2:30 You couldn’t get away with a remark like that about our Caledonian cousins or the Royal Marines if you were speaking at a lectern, a dinner table or a pulpit. But it’s ok … er …
  • 3:50 Ditto unwanted children.
  • Ditto
  • Ditto
  • Dittos, several and sundry

The fact is that in this world of the PC police looking over our shoulders at every turn no one can get away with what he says. But he does.

He appears not to have heard of ‘Hate Speech’, and how I wish I hadn’t! It is the invention of a relatively small but disproportionately influential coterie of sweet, self-important souls whose own hate is evidently directed at themselves. Normal, well-balanced people jovially hurl affectionate insults at each other without some tiresome twerp popping up to tell them how offended they should be. Perhaps someone will one day put them all out of our misery.

Callaghan is a normal, well-balanced person insulting everyone; and he does it with stunning skill. Regardless of the malign madness of political correctness, his material is manifestly dangerous; and yet he not only gets away with it, but his audience – who comprise many of his targets – laugh, love, and lap it up.

Children: don’t try this at home (unless your family is an intelligent, well-balanced, loving and sensible one with grown-up values).