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Telegraph
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
State is ‘stifling criticism of Islam over fear of violent mobs', says Tory MP
The state is stifling criticism of Islam because of fears of a violent mob reaction, a senior MP has claimed. Nick Timothy, a front-bench Tory MP, issued the warning ahead of his Bill aimed at protecting free speech and the right to criticise religions, including Islam, being presented before Parliament on Tuesday. It follows the conviction of Hamit Coskun, 50, for setting fire to a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London earlier this year while declaring that Islam was a 'religion of terrorism'. He was found guilty of committing a racially aggravated public order offence during a peaceful protest. Politicians and free speech campaigners claimed the 'grotesque' prosecution was an attempt to revive long-abolished blasphemy laws. In an attempt to prevent future prosecutions, Mr Timothy, who is a columnist for The Telegraph, is proposing a Freedom of Expression (Religion) Bill that would rewrite the Public Order Act to prevent it being used as a 'de facto' blasphemy law. His bill, which is co-signed by 11 other MPs, would extend legal provisions – which protect the freedom to criticise religion in specific circumstances – to the whole of the Public Order Act. 'The Public Order Act is increasingly being used as a blasphemy law to protect Islam from criticism. The Act was never intended to do this. Parliament never voted for this, and the British people do not want it,' said Mr Timothy. 'To use the Public Order Act in this way is especially perverse, since it makes a protester accountable for the actions of those who respond with violence to criticism of their faith. This is wrong, and it destroys our freedom of speech. 'We should be honest that the law is only being used in this way because the authorities have become afraid of the violent reaction of mobs of people who want to impose their values on the rest of us. 'My Bill will put a stop to this and restore our freedom of speech – and our right to criticise any and all religions, including Islam.' At Westminster magistrates' court, Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly conduct, which was motivated 'in part by hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam'. Coskun, who is an atheist of Armenian-Kurdish descent, attended the Turkish Consulate on Feb 13 while holding a burning copy of the Koran above his head and shouting 'F---- Islam' and 'Islam is religion of terrorism'. He was ordered to pay £240, but despite the conviction he has pledged to continue burning Korans and intends to go on a tour of the UK, visiting Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow where he will set fire to the holy book. It is unclear whether he will resist doing so until the case is heard at the Court of Appeal where it will be decided whether he is able to challenge Monday's verdict.
Telegraph
30-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The Left has fallen right into Jenrick's trap on fare-dodging
Robert Jenrick knows how to grab headlines. More importantly, he knows exactly how to lead his critics down a blind alley from which they cannot escape. Yesterday the shadow justice secretary released a video of himself in the London Underground confronting those who had avoided paying their fare. The political point was hardly subtle: why should the rest of us pay for those who can't be bothered paying their way? Just as he must have hoped would happen, his vigilantism sparked a massive debate on social media, with users dividing along the traditional Right and Left lines: Jenrick was either a hero who was unafraid to tackle lawlessness on behalf of the majority, or a cynical villain who was at least in part responsible, while a government minister, for the reduction in police and Underground staff who might otherwise have been available to tackle the fare-dodgers themselves. It all fell so neatly into place for Jenrick. The Left really cannot help itself, and he must have known this before he embarked on his publicity stunt. Channel 4 News spoke for much of progressive Britain who felt offended by his initiative: having watched the footage, they decided that the main news story was not that a worrying level of passengers were skipping ticket checks (nearly one in every 25 passengers, according to Jenrick) but that the Tory MP didn't have Transport for London's permission to film there at all. Twitter users with more time on their hands than I have since pointed out that TfL rules seem only to apply to commercial filming, which obviously didn't include Jenrick's exercise. But his point was made: confronted with systematic and expensive fare-dodging, the Left would rather ignore the problem if it's identified by someone whose politics they disagree with. Let us be clear: Jenrick was offering no actual solutions to the problem. This was an exercise in populism that Nigel Farage himself might have envied, and it is straight out of the Reform playbook to provoke voters' anger without explaining how they would fix the issue other than a few superficial slogans. Nevertheless, it was a PR triumph for Jenrick. The tidal wave of indignation that followed the posting of his video could hardly have suited his purposes better. Here he was, standing up for hard-pressed, law-abiding Londoners while eight 'officers' (it was not clear if this was a reference to British Transport Police officers or Underground staff) stood nearby. 'It's also just annoying,' says Jenrick to the camera, 'watching so many people break the law and get away with it…It's the same with bike theft, phone theft, tool theft, shoplifting, drugs in town centres, weird Turkish barber shops. It's all chipping away at society. The state needs to reassert itself and go after law-breakers.' The reference to 'weird Turkish barber shops' was also ingenious: most people share Jenrick's suspicion about the motivation behind their recent proliferation in high streets across the country, but it is exactly the kind of accusation that makes the red mist descend in the eyes and brains of many on the Left who would rather not bring foreigners into it. At root, there is a fundamental and more complex policy issue which a minute-long video on Twitter can hardly be expected to analyse – the differing approaches to crime and its causes by the Right and the Left. Judging from many of the responses to Jenrick's original Tweet, there are very few Labour supporters who took to heart Tony Blair's view that the party should be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime', preferring to emphasise the latter and completely ignore the former. Fare-dodging is caused, it seems, either by poverty or by the state not devoting enough resources to prevent the rest of us from behaving badly. Meanwhile, the Right, as represented by Jenrick, believes it's all about personal responsibility and personal choices. It is not difficult to see whose side most voters will take in that debate. Labour and the Left in general should never have fallen into Jenrick's trap. Just as Blair and Jack Straw caused outrage for a few on the Left in the 1990s by criticising 'aggressive' beggars and squeegee merchants, yet won the support of a majority of voters who were fed up with the practice and who felt, until then, unable to complain about it, so Jenrick is empowering others to object to a pretty straightforward injustice that is pushing up prices for the law-abiding majority. Cynical? Undoubtedly. Opportunistic? Without question. Effective? Certainly.
Telegraph
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Israel cannot always rely on the British Right
Hamas propaganda always gets you in the end. This is the dark conclusion that emerges from the new trend for some conservatives to abandon their support for the Middle East's only democracy. Last week, the Tory MP Mark Pritchard made a speech in the House of Commons that seemed almost designed to appeal to social media. 'I've been in this House for 20 years,' he began. 'I have supported Israel pretty much at all costs, frankly. But today, I want to say that I got it wrong and I condemn Israel.' While acknowledging the country's right to exist and the need for the hostages to be freed – thanks for that! – he made no bones about his new position: 'I'd like to withdraw my support right now.' This statement is perhaps best assessed by considering it through the eyes of the people it directly concerns. Firstly, let's look at it through the eyes of ordinary Gazans, with whom the MP would likely profess to be most concerned. On Friday, a contact in the Strip sent me a string of expletive-filled messages about Hamas after they issued a public threat to anybody who helped the Americans deliver aid. This morning, when I sent him Pritchard's speech on WhatsApp, he replied in a scathing voice-note. 'He can come also to live in Gaza. He will change his mind, you know?' He added his concern that such high-profile swivels of international support may inadvertently embolden Hamas, causing them to harden their position in ceasefire negotiations and bringing further suffering on ordinary Palestinians like himself. I imagine the jihadis of Hamas would be cackling. They would be unlikely to have heard of the MP for The Wrekin, but from their point of view, every win's a win. Pritchard was obviously not supporting the terrorists, but in the bigger picture, that is likely how they would see it. After all, he was withdrawing support from the very country that Hamas has sworn to destroy, which is the whole point of their propaganda campaign. For months – no, years – we have been aware of the pernicious falsity of Hamas propaganda. Whether falsifying casualty figures, exaggerating reports of famine or censoring footage so that it looks as if Israel is only targeting civilians, the methods have hardly been a secret. Sadly, however, they take their toll in the end. Seen through the eyes of Jerusalem, Pritchard's posturing will hardly cause sleepless nights. In the final analysis, Israel has an obligation to defend itself, whatever British MPs may think. As Ze'ev Jabotinsky, one of the fathers of modern Israel, put it: 'We are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.' No tears, in other words, are likely to be shed over a speech made by a parliamentarian whose reputation does not extend far beyond Westminster. Yet he is only one of several. Last week, Kit Malthouse abandoned his reputation for compromise by rousing a group of Conservatives from both chambers to further damage Tory electability by signing a letter to the Prime Minister pledging their support for the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State. The letter was leaked to the Guardian. Amusingly, Sir Keir just ignored them. This is a trend that goes beyond Parliament to the drawing rooms of the conservative elites. Take Matthew Parris. Is he still a Tory? It's hard to know them from the Lib Dems these days. Either way, he has adopted the same line as the FT and the Economist, who both put the boot in to Israel last week. 'How are our successors going to feel when one day British children are taught at school that, in their own century, their own countrymen averted their eyes while Palestinians faced a rain of missiles and bombs, with many tens of thousands dying in the assaults?' he asked in a recent column. In truth, Conservative Arabism is hardly something new, particularly among the upper crust. Lord Cameron has been pretty vocal in support of Gaza since October 7, repeatedly calling on Israel to 'pause' while it was in danger of actually winning. He has made a point of backing the two-state solution to the hilt, which at times like these is always a reliable measure of a man who appears to care more about his own self-image than the grim reality on the ground. Though he was quite happy, in his time, to bomb Libya. Some may suggest that these are patricians with a bit of a Lawrence of Arabia thing going on. They fall in a rich tradition. We can count Sir Mark Sykes, of Sykes-Picot fame, who created all those Middle Eastern states that are flourishing so profusely today. We can count Harry St John Philby, father of the Soviet spy Kim, who persuaded the Saudis to give drilling rights to the Americans rather than Britain and converted to Islam in 1930. We can count Tories like the late Ian Gilmour of The Spectator, the late MP for Westbury Dennis Walters, and the late diplomat and parliamentarian Anthony Nutting, all of whom held Arabist views that, one might argue, sometimes blinded them to the rights and wrongs of things. Despite the best efforts of these chaps, however, Israel is doing pretty well. Amid the agonies and tragedies of war, and in the face of the far-Right threat and constitutional crisis, it has eviscerated Hezbollah, humiliated Iran and all but destroyed Hamas. It has the highest birthrate in the OECD, its GDP per capita surpassed that of Britain – its former colonial ruler – and in 2020, in March, Google's parent company, Alphabet, bought the Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz for a record-breaking $32 billion. Moreover, according to the UN, it is the eighth happiest country on Earth, while Britain languishes at twenty-third. Stick that in your Tory hookah and smoke it.
Times
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
My birth trauma: ‘Lying in blood, I thought I was going to die'
'I thought I was going to die, I was never going to see my daughter, and my husband would be a single dad,' Theo Clarke says, her nails gripping the sofa. 'I was lying in blood and faeces, rushed by trolley into theatre and operated on without any general anaesthetic. The pain was excruciating. I went into the hospital with fairy lights and a playlist — I came out with a third-degree tear and incontinent, but I had my baby.' Sitting in her immaculate terraced home in Ealing, west London, surrounded by her daughter Arabella's toys, the former Tory MP for Stafford looks like the archetypal no-nonsense, jolly hockey sticks woman. A one-time charity CEO, and the niece of Jacob Rees-Mogg, she always prided herself
