Dear Subscribers,
One year after winning a landslide majority, Keir Starmer was forced into a humiliating U-turn on welfare spending, as backbench MPs threatened to rebel and ministers threatened to resign over proposed cuts to benefits. The PM is looking increasingly directionless as Labour’s promises of ‘growth’ and ‘change’ look increasingly empty.
Not a great first year in office
The CEO of M&S has called labelling rules introduced under the Windsor Framework as “bureaucratic madness”. The rules require goods heading from the UK mainland to Northern Ireland to be labelled with a “not for EU” marking or face additional customs checks. Much vaunted at the time, the Windsor Framework is slowly proving to be overly cumbersome, having created an effective international border in the Irish Sea.
The Governor of the Bank of England has warned against over-interpreting recent figures suggesting that the UK economy grew by 0.7% in the first three months of this year, in an apparent rebuke to the Chancellor, who has claimed that the UK has ‘turned a corner’. He pointed out that higher taxes and a ‘softening’ labour market would be a hindrance to economic growth and claimed that the Bank of England is expecting weaker figures in the coming months.
Chancellor gets a dose of reality from the Bank of England
A group of MEPs will introduce a motion of censure against Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, claiming to have collected the necessary 72 signatures. Although unlikely to pass, the motion reflects growing dissatisfaction with the embattled Commission President who has been criticised for a lack of transparency and accused of trying to centralise power, sidelining the Parliament.
Media
Chris Middleton on the British contribution to world history
Munira Mirza on how to fix British politics
Key Points
It is getting increasingly difficult to ignore the contrast between the British state’s response to offensive speech from different groups. This weekend, a rapper on stage at Glastonbury led the crowds in a chant of “death, death to the IDF”. A band which had called on fans to ‘murder [their] MP’ were allowed to perform at the same festival. The Met has said that there will be no charges to answer. Meanwhile, a woman has been sentenced for posting a tweet endorsing arson attacks on hotels housing migrants and a man has been fined for burning a copy of the Koran during an act of protest in Knightsbridge.
The pattern that seems to emerge is that calls for violence against fashionable bogeymen — Israel, right-wing politicians, etc. — are treated very leniently, while comparatively mild comments directed against fashionable victims face the full weight of the law. This two-tier approach to policing speech is a threat to democracy and a threat to public order. It adds to a sense that people are not allowed to express views which liberal elites would disapprove of, and gives genuinely radical elements an opportunity to exploit growing discontent.
This is not to say that rappers should be locked up for causing offence or that bands should necessarily be de-platformed for off-colour comments about politicians. It may be best that the police stay out of both issues. But consistency is a must. The police are there to keep the peace, not to offer protection to some groups and censorship to others. It cannot be that incitement to violence is only criminal when it is associated with right-wing politics.
Concerns about ‘two-tier’ policing are usually met with eye-rolls or outright indignation – it is, apparently, a ‘far-right talking point’. Establishment figures seem genuinely offended at the accusation. But, increasingly, the facts speak for themselves. Even if the emerging pattern is otherwise explicable, the police ought to be aware how their actions are perceived. Feigning offence will only allow frustration to fester.
