Today’s guests:
Watch along…
Several Tory MPs failed to turn up to vote for the party’s opposition day motion to leave the ECHR in the Commons today. Curious…
Opposition Day motion: MoD Bicester and illegal migrants was voted down by 309 to 113. It proposed that Britain leave the European Convention on Human Rights and condemned Labour plans to house 1,256 males at a disused MoD site near Piddington. A flashpoint for the migration debate…
The motion got 100 Tory votes out of 118. Several Tory MPs who have previously expressed concern with leaving the ECHR did not vote, including:
Is every single Tory committed to Badenoch’s ECHR policy?
Is it too early to say Andy Burnham is a dud? Eighteen months ago, Kemi was a dud — and look at her now.
Remembering Blair’s Bambi approach — the sensitive, be-gentle-with-me thing he did so well — we might wonder whether Burnham’s high-minded generosity and faltering uncertainties are the prelude to an address to the nation in three years’ time of, “Buy your own effing pints you bunch of ***!”
The IOPC has ordered Scotland Yard to reinvestigate Graham Linehan’s complaints over his arrest at Heathrow last September, ruling the Met’s own review was “not reasonable and proportionate.” The Father Ted creator was met at the airport by five armed officers over posts on X from six months earlier…
The Met already admitted the detention was unacceptable and apologised, though no officers were disciplined. Its review still found the arrest lawful, putting the blame on an overworked trainee detective and poor supervision. Blame the new boy…
The watchdog now says that if the force cannot justify the arrest, its handling of Article 10 (free expression) and the bail conditions, there may be enough evidence that Linehan was treated unfairly because of his gender-critical views – something the courts have ruled can count as a protected characteristic. He was reported by Lynsay Watson, a trans former police officer. Linehan also points out that the offence of inciting violence against trans people does not exist under the Public Order Act. Minor detail…
Linehan said:
“The only possible reason the Met acted in the extreme way they did was political bias… That the Met sought to cover this up is yet more evidence of a two-tier approach to the policing of this debate.”
Toby Young, whose Free Speech Union backed the challenge, said he hopes police will “take freedom-of-expression rights into consideration before arresting someone for a tweet.” Five armed officers for some posts on X…
Treasury & pensions minister Torsten Bell is trying to spin Labour’s way into economic sunlight. Doesn’t work…
In a new Substack piece and accompanying X posts Bell ends up making outlandish claims:
There is a massive cost of borrowing crisis currently underway because the markets do not expect fiscal aptitude from this government. There is a £35 billion black hole. Labour has no plan to cut welfare spending. There is no path to 3% on defence. Cuckoo…
Andy Burnham says Labour will have nothing to do with the Greens after Zack Polanski’s party voted that ‘Zionism is racism’. Labour currently shares power with the Greens in five authorities across England:
Presumably these agreements will now be revoked. Unless Burnham is a hypocrite…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.