Keir Starmer had a vocal coach? He should demand his money back. And Martin Frost (we have open justice in this country) committed a public order offence that was immemorial in Common Law before being written into Statute by Margaret Thatcher, with an aggravating circumstance introduced in the same year as the abolition of the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.
In the way that if the punishment is a fine, then it is a law for the poor but not for the rich, so if something is a summary rather than an indictable offence, then it exists to make acquittal effectively impossible. The point of these "alarm and distress" laws is that there is no defence to them. If someone claims to have been alarmed or distressed, then you will be found guilty. Their key is to be well enough connected that the Crown Prosecution Service will take up their case.
Have you ever complained about any of this in the past? About Thatcherism? About its consolidation by New Labour? About the consequent ability of Labour's real base to imprison its political enemies at will? In my own experience, that happened 10 years into a Conservative Government. Those who speak freely about the assault on free speech, what are you doing about this? As John Rees makes clear, unless you made a stand now, or unless you were instead a good Starmerite, then this time they really would come for you. And soon.
How do we complain about being alarmed and distressed?
ReplyDeleteWe cannot. We are to be the complained about, not the complainants.
Delete