Associate Editor
@LD_Sceptics
and host of the Sceptic.
Co-host of Modern Dissent, a London talk series challenging established ideas (see link for tickets).
That Newham Council clip in full:
“I’ve been informed that I’ve been misrepresenting the councillor's name. I should have said ‘them’ rather than ‘he’. So I do apologise for that. And I think that’s what affected him, is it? Them, sorry. So my apologies to him. To them. Sorry.”
"That Tan Ikram has handed down prison sentences for private memes makes his leniency towards the paraglider trio more difficult to swallow."
Me in
@spectator
on the women not punished for terror offences because "emotions ran very high on this issue".
Today, 6 retired police officers received suspended sentences for "grossly offensive" WhatsApp messages under the Communications Act 2003, one of which, a boomer meme about parrots, simply for its "implication".
🧵(1/6)
@SpeechUnion
The paraglider girls impartiality row goes to the heart of Britain’s judicial establishment. Judge Tan Ikram sits on the judicial appointments commission, has a CBE – and wrote woke impartiality guidance used by every judge in the country.
Me in
@spectator
It keeps going.
After one council member urges the chair to "make this a safe space for trans and nonbinary members", a second says, "I do apologise, and I'll personally apologise to him when he comes back."
Proceedings are stopped to wait for Keeling to return after he stormed out.
Rokhsana Fiaz, the mayor of Newham, then launches into a struggle session rant about how the council must “do better”.
Then, midway through, she says “It’s caused hurt, to the degree that he…”
Is he just strict about speech?
In August, he heard the case of “Sarah Jane Baker,” a convicted violent felon who while out on licence told an audience of trans activists, “If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face.”
He found Baker not guilty.
Yet judge Ikram has previously boasted to students about handing down stiff sentences to police officers, saying it is needed to reform an alleged culture of racism in the police.
(The officers were retired, their groupchat called "Old Boys Beer Meet".)
Ikram is also among contributors to the Equal Treatment Bench Book, UK judiciary diversity guidance which employs critical-race-theory concepts like “systemic” racism, “unconscious bias,” and “micro-aggressions.”
(6/6) Ikram is no rogue actor here – he's firmly embedded in Britain's judicial establishment.
In Boris Johnson's 2022 New Year Honours, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for “services to judicial diversity.”
My article:
Hate-speech offences are subject merely to summary conviction, meaning that when these cases end up in court, innocence or guilt, and any resulting sentence, rest on the whim of a single magistrate.
So you'd hope that the judge, Tan Ikram, would be scrupulously impartial.
Hope not Hate had something ‘BIG’ to say on Thursday. Not about how Islamist extremism is corrupting our democracy, of course.
Far worse: a right-leaning millionaire sometimes likes tweets criticising immigration.
Have they no shame?
Me in
@spectator
My latest in
@spikedonline
on how the BBC's specialist disinformation reporter, Marianna Spring, "weaponises" one-sided coverage of Twitter under
@elonmusk
to call for online censorship.
Also
Ikram ruled the messages were "offensive to many good people in this country and not only people who might be directly offended".
It's worth spelling out what he means here: jokes can apparently be "offensive" to people indirectly – that is, to people *who didn't see them*.
Council chairman Winston Vaughan then apologises "profusely" for "misgendering" Keeling:
"It is clear I need to commit myself to proper training on this matter. I’m deeply sorry for not getting their pronouns right… I will do better in the future.”
Enjoyed writing this one.
"Doctor Who has been one of the Beeb’s – and Britain’s – most recognisable TV exports. Sadly, this once-iconic show has been allowed to degenerate into a vehicle for woke preaching. Audiences deserve better."
@spectator
OK this is absolutely insane. The judge in question has seemingly liked a post on LinkedIn by barrister Sham Uddin saying “Free Free Palestine” and speaking of “Israeli terrorist[s]”.
What on Earth is going on in the British justice system?
@L_Wastell
@SpeechUnion
@TonyDowson5
@toadmeister
In the light of the judge’s “like” for this intemperately expressed LinkedIn posting (it has been reliably confirmed to me that this is genuine and is from the same judge’s LinkedIn account) I think he should arguably have recused himself from this trial
See also this earlier piece by Freddie Attenborough. Absurdly, the officers were criminalised for "offensive" speech never meant to be seen by anyone but themselves.
And on the right, the "implication" that Michael Chadwell was then convicted for.
What the hell happened to Ian Hislop?
Here he is in 2003 bashing EU corruption and its plan for a “United States of Europe”. He even makes fun of a left-wing comedian for thinking swearing is funny.
Now he’s just another cranky, middle-class bore burbling about Nigel Farage.
Important to note that when Ikram boasted to US law students about his sentencing of constable James Watts – whom he jailed last year for 20 weeks for memes mocking George Floyd – he may have been violating judiciary rules.
Every time someone advocates for "Net Zero", what they are really calling for is climate rationing.
This is willingly consigning our economy to eco-penury. No one should accept this.
Me in
@spikedonline
Today, 6 retired police officers received suspended sentences for "grossly offensive" WhatsApp messages under the Communications Act 2003, one of which, a boomer meme about parrots, simply for its "implication".
🧵(1/6)
@SpeechUnion
My latest in
@spikedonline
:
"When even a slightly off-colour joke that may not even have been made is allowed to ruin an individual’s reputation and career, we have got serious problems. It’s time to stop this showtrial."
Thrilled to say that this year I will be joining
@spikedonline
as an editorial assistant.
Thanks so much to
@FraserMyers
and
@Tom_Slater_
and the team at spiked for bringing me on board.
Here’s to a great 2023!
"Mechanisation may increase our prosperity, but it will not save our souls."
I wrote for
@Quillette
about J.S. Mill, modernity, and the drawbacks of progress.
"The civil service’s virtue-signalling rainbow lanyards and neopronouns are not just harmless time-wasting. They speak to widespread capture of our highest institutions by transgender ideology."
Me in
@spikedonline
:
@spectator
The Equal Treatment Bench Book shows “how contested ideologies are laundered into our public life through politically unaccountable bodies”. It contains concepts like ‘systemic’ racism and ‘non-binary’, and was drawn up by a private committee of judges with no oversight.
Hope not Hate has written a very evasive response to my piece about how it downplays Islamist extremism.
I can see why it ignored the actual piece and focused on others' tweets. My first paragraph alone would mark a vanishingly rare criticism of Islamism on its website.
There's a reason our ancestors hunted wolves to extinction - they're a menace to humans and livestock alike.
I wrote for
@spikedonline
about the lunacy of reintroducing wolves to Britain:
@EmilyThornberry
@AngelaRayner
This kind of headline is precisely why Labour lost the red wall and if you keep up your focus on narrow, divisive identity politics you will consign Labour to electoral oblivion for a generation.
@PaulEmbery
Now after widespread condemnation of perceived judicial impartiality, including from Suella Braverman and two former justice secretaries, Ikram is denying he intended to like the post.
Will anyone believe him?
So let me get this straight. For judge Tan Ikram: offensive messages in a private WhatsApp = 20 weeks in prison, or a suspended sentence and community service.
But showing support for a terrorist group doesn’t merit punishment because “emotions ran very high on this issue”.
My latest in
@EuroConOfficial
on how the EU is cynically using the Israel-Hamas conflict and recent terror attacks in Europe to push for more online
censorship.
@SpeechUnion
That Newham Council clip in full:
“I’ve been informed that I’ve been misrepresenting the councillor's name. I should have said ‘them’ rather than ‘he’. So I do apologise for that. And I think that’s what affected him, is it? Them, sorry. So my apologies to him. To them. Sorry.”
An equalities impact assessment for every single government decision, plans to “eliminate” gender inequality and the belief that disability is “socially constructed”.
Keir Starmer's radical equalities revolution is worse than you think.
Me in
@spectator
“It’s to Badenoch’s great credit that she has dared to champion ‘fairness and meritocracy’ against the EDI industry. But she should go further. Neither will be achievable while the Public Sector Equality Duty is the law of the land.”
My latest
@spectator
In
@epkaufm
’s groundbreaking new book Taboo, he explains how the woke cultural revolution took over the West – and the best way to stop it.
This Wednesday in London, he’s giving his first, exclusive public lecture about his thesis for Modern Dissent.
Tickets in bio.
Diversity is not our strength – just ask the government. After decades of mass immigration and multiculturalism, a new report calls for a "whole of society" approach to maintaining our fraying social fabric. If this is strength, I'd hate to see weakness.
Will be on
@GBNEWS
from 8:30pm this evening with the lovely
@CressidaWetton
to discuss Modern Dissent, a new London lecture series challenging established ideas.
'Deconstructing Decolonisation', our next talk, is on 13 June with Professor
@NigelBiggar
@PunishedSnoop
Crime and Punishment is not a Christian novel. The main character, Raskolnikov, is a nihilistic atheist. He even commits a crime which is forbidden by the Ten Commandments, an important text in the Bible!
Great work from
@kafkaswife
in the Telegraph, following up my reporting about judge Tan Ikram.
"Lord Wolfson KC, a former justice minister, suggested Judge Ikram’s comments could fall foul of the code of conduct."
@CathyYoung63
@JohnHMcWhorter
Being a liberal doesn't mean equivocation. Indeed, in an illiberal climate we need people like
@ConceptualJames
more than ever to keep fighting our corner, and he does a brilliant job.
I've written about this here:
@a_centrism
@doukhobour
"You don't get to" - this is what the left have done for the past 40 years with "racist" etc, this is why they win the culture war.
Yours is a losing strategy based on the naive fiction of a reasoned marketplace of ideas.
"The English are an ethnic group, though our heritage is mixed." A welcome tonic from
@AmiableArgument
on Midwit Remainers Deconstruct English Identity Day.
JOHN.
Musical biopic about the life of Henry VIII’s Black Trumpeter John and how, with his funky fresh calypso musical innovation that also speaks to the legacy of colonialism he teaches the stodgy, boring stuck-up unimaginative white Tudor Court to let loose and live a little
@AurelianofRome
It reads like conventional academese, but if you translate it to plain English you realise it's completely batshit - this is how they get away with so much insanity.
Pleased to be quoted in this important piece by
@edwest
on the many examples of how Britain really isn’t a free country anymore, courtesy especially of Section 127 of Communications Act (2003) – which the Tories could still repeal if they wanted to.
An important fightback in a captured sector.
We're very pleased to have Professor Kaufmann speaking at the inaugural lecture of our new series, Modern Dissent.
Topic: 'Taboo: Liberalism, not Cultural Marxism, Explains Woke'.
February 28 in central London.
Tickets in bio!
Nice coverage of My new Centre for Heterodox Social Science at
@UniOfBuckingham
, which launches at an event on Thursday.
The aim is to create the first non left-dominated social science research centre, within a viewpoint diverse university, in Britain.
“Britain’s combination of wide-ranging, highly subjective hate-speech laws with a judiciary steeped in identity politics is a recipe for arbitrary authoritarianism.”
Me in
@TheCriticMag
on the sentencing of those 6 Met officers.
Thrilled to be receiving a grant from
@SpeechUnion
's MacTaggart programme for Modern Dissent, a new London lecture series challenging established ideas.
Our first talk, ‘Taboo: Liberalism, not Cultural Marxism, Explains Woke’ is by
@epkaufm
on 28 February.
See bio for tickets!
Some photos of the event.
Thanks so much
@epkaufm
for a fascinating lecture!
And to
@SpeechUnion
for helping us put it on.
See link in bio for our newsletter for future events.
"To both populist, new right culture warriors and establishment conservative libertarians, woke big government is a unifying enemy."
I reviewed the Origins of Woke by
@RichardHanania
for
@TheCriticMag
@GlennLoury
Beating the Hitch is quite the achievement.
I wasn't even born when this debate happened, but it makes me miss the 90s - civil, interesting, nuanced debate on an important and potentially divisive topic.
@KemiBadenoch
@FT
Ok but can you please do something about the Public Sector Equality Duty which is the root of all of this stuff.
I wrote about this for
@spectator
here.
🚨🚨Excited to announce the next event for Modern Dissent, 'Deconstructing Decolonisation' with
@NigelBiggar
. The bestselling author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning will ask what is driving today's incessant woke demands to 'decolonise' Western society.
See bio for tickets.
Quick🧵on my latest for
@TheCriticMag
on the Khan Review, the government’s independent report into social cohesion. Dame Sara Khan is no critic of multiculturalism, but her recommendations nonetheless reveal the parlous state of "diverse modern Britain".
Delighted to have my first article published in
@AreoMagazine
, on the paradox of tolerance and why liberals need to stand up for their values.
Thank you
@HPluckrose
!
"If conservatism finds itself forever in a reactive posture, this is surely a losing strategy."
Some thoughts for
@brusselssignal
on
@NatConTalk
Brussels and the need for a positive vision for the Right, as shown by NS Lyons,
@Raphfel
and
@PM_ViktorOrban
, the "doer".
“Woke is not down to ‘cultural Marxism’ – it’s an incremental ratchet driven by liberal guilt and compassion. It can only be stopped by deconstructing race, sexuality and gender taboos.”
So says
@epkaufm
in the inaugural lecture of Modern Dissent, Feb 28 London.
Tickets in bio.
@robfordmancs
But it isn't for their views, that's precisely the point. It is for a university culture which allows people to be deplatformed, fired or skipped over for promotion for their views.
@ConceptualJames
Hegel's worship of the state above the individual, his historicism and his use of obscurantist jargon to bewitch his followers are among many reasons he is the "intellectual" father of modern totalitarianism. Popper's book is here - see Chapters 11-12:
"The aim of modern left-wing politics is to make right-wing politics impossible... The great struggle for conservatives is to reverse the neutering of Parliament."
Important piece by
@niall_gooch
on the blobby anti-politics of citizens' assemblies.
Introducing Modern Dissent, a new London talk series challenging established ideas.
On 28 Feb,
@epkaufm
will be giving our inaugural lecture, ‘Taboo: Liberalism, not Cultural Marxism, Explains Woke’, in an exclusive preview of his new book.
Tickets are £7. Link in bio.
@ConceptualJames
To explain: the guy is Karl Popper, whose masterwork 'The Open Society and its Enemies' traces the links between the reactionary political philosophies of Plato and Aristotle all the way to Hegel (and Marx), in what he calls the 'perennial revolt against freedom'.
"The technocratic crusade against so-called disinformation is in fact nakedly political and anti-democratic."
My debut in
@EuroConOfficial
on the EU's incoming Digital Services Act, which is a grave threat to free speech on the Internet.
The next meeting of the
@speechchampions
London Free Speech Salon is Wednesday June 1st. We’ll be discussing the recent ITV documentary on “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress”
@Miss_Snuffy
and an essay by Theodore Dalrymple.
All young, inquiring minds welcome!
DM for details.
Britain's cash-strapped councils are going bankrupt and planning cutbacks -- but they're still shelling out 6 figures for diversity roles. After 14 years of Tory government, Britain is a world leader in woke bureaucracy.
My latest in
@spikedonline
"Haha, political violence is funny when it's done to our opponents", say the
#bekind
'adults-in-the-room' sensibles.
Quick thread on some of the shameless responses to this shameless tweet.
Very excited to have Professor Kaufmann speaking this Wednesday in London for the inaugural Modern Dissent lecture, in an exclusive preview of his new book.
The topic: 'Taboo: Liberalism, not Cultural Marxism, Explains Woke.'
There are still a few tickets left. Link in bio!
@TheCriticMag
This judge, whose LinkedIn announces his "particular interest in diversity and inclusion within the public service", will now sit on to the Judicial Appointments Commission.
"Dinenage seems to have forgotten that she is an MP in a liberal democracy, not a commissar of a totalitarian state. What business is it of an MP whether a private citizen is profiting from posting videos on a social-media channel?"
Me in
@spikedonline
“I argue that there is a catastrophic gap between what British people think its empire did to the world and what the world knows its empire did to the world.”
🖊️
@Sathnam
"It says a lot about Britain’s elite culture that these senior public servants, two of the most powerful men in the country, were so swiftly routed by the suggestion they had violated a progressive taboo."
Me on the Garrick fracas for
@EuroConOfficial
See also Dominic Grieve (KC PC) on the benefits of Britain’s soft power: “Promoting human rights and observing them ourselves is in our self-interest… [Doing so] ensured permanent statutory reforms to the Jordanian criminal justice system”.
From “The Case for the Centre Right”.
A new book by the recent head of the Foreign Office argues that Britain should barter away its nuclear deterrent in pursuit of 'soft power' goals, & give away our seat at the UN to the EU.
(The reviewer seems to relish his hand in the recent Blob coups against Raab and Johnson)
"It did not have to be this way.
It should never have been this way."
When will they say this about grooming gangs? The Manchester Arena bombing? The Hartlepool stabbing?