The Times reports,
The home secretary’s party conference speech proposing that companies compile lists of foreign workers has been declared a “hate incident” by police under crime recording policies that she has supported.
Amber Rudd’s remarks about tougher rules for immigrant workers and foreign students attracted fierce criticism at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham last October.
She said that the government would be “examining whether we should tighten the test companies have to take before recruiting from abroad” and ensuring that foreign workers were “not taking jobs British people could do”.
Joshua Silver, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, was so concerned that he reported the speech to police.
“I felt politicians have been using hate speech to turn Britons against foreigners, and I thought that is probably not lawful,” Professor Silver said.
Once he reported the speech, police were required to investigate.
West Midlands police have now written to the professor stating that the inquiry is concluded and the matter “has been recorded in line with the National Police Chiefs’ Council manual as a non-crime hate incident”.
The policy of blanket recording of all hate incidents was set out in 2014 by the College of Policing and backed by Ms Rudd last year.
I do not know whether Professor Silver’s motivation for reporting Rudd to the police was serious or satirical. Either way, it gave me a laugh.
Update: Apparently he was being serious. There is humour to be derived from his bout with Andrew Neil on BBC2’s Daily Politics, though I prefer my comedy to be less cruel. Kinder souls will hope that Professor Silver is remembered as the inventor of a type of low-cost user-adjustable eyeglasses – devices which might help millions of people – than for today’s embarrassing performance.
By the way, next time you read of the post-Brexit surge of reported hate incidents, remember the surge includes this.
Considering that the BluLabour hag May is doubtless fully in favour of tyrannical Marxian “hatespeech” crap it is good to see her and her gang hoist by their own petard.
However I think we will be waiting a long time to see any bluebottles arriving to interview the Rudd creature.
If only some public-spirited wag could spray Whitehall by drone with a mixture of LSD and anger-inducing drugs a wonderful scenario springs to mind.
The cops arrive to interview Rudd but she orders her Security Service minders to beat the crap out of the rozzers and throw them in the gutter outside.
However –fuelled by drug induced paranoia–the cops have brought a massive backup force hidden around the corner and they smash in and counterattack–battering the security hacks and dragging Rudd by the hair to the cop shop.
May having–had her share of the chemicocktail– orders the station surrounded and shot to pieces by units of the British Army.
However all of the London/Home Counties cop gun squads join forces and surprise attack the soldier boys from the rear.
And it escalates on and on until the entire thug strength in the control of the middle/upper class Marxists who now make up the British Establishment have all slaughtered each other.
Sadly merely a dream.
There was an episode of the original Star Trek wherein Kirk and company destroyed an army of robots by overloading them with self-contradictory information.
Query: why not report the reporting of a hate crime as a hate crime, subject to mandatory investigation? Then, of course, the reporting of the reporting of a hate crime, and then (and then (and then )) …
I do not care for Mr Ecks dream: there is enough insanity in government already. And I fear Ferox’s circularity is more likely to be achieved in the form of making it a hate crime to deny an accusation of hate crime.
However I love Natalie’s post. According to Dominic Cummings, the way that EU rules, European Court of Human Wrongs rulings, and the threat of ‘judicial review’ could get in the way of ministers ever doing anything or of refraining from doing anything (I summarise typical advice they got as ‘it may be illegal to act – but it may also be illegal not to act’) was a factor in radicalising some who campaigned for Leave. Perhaps even Amber Rudd can be similarly radicalised in time. 🙂 But I doubt Professor Silver was being ironic – and indeed, all the better if these absurdities are in their own way genuine.
And I fear Ferox’s circularity is more likely to be achieved in the form of making it a hate crime to deny an accusation of hate crime.
Since that is already happening (it’s racism to deny that you are a racist, sexism to deny that you are a sexist, islamophobia to deny that you are an islamophobe, and privilege abuse to deny that you are privileged) I fear that you are correct.
Dear Miss Solent
It is a requirement of the Companies Acts that the nationality of a director be declared.
Is that now a hate crime?
DP
If investigating a ‘hate’ crime (as opposed to a ‘friendly’ crime) is mandatory, then making an unfounded report seems to me to be a prima facie case of causing wasteful employment of police, and the fact that investigation is mandatory might well be an aggravating factor in sentencing.
However, the Director of Public Prosecutions must agree to such a prosecution, so no one can bring a charge against the good Professor without her consent.
It is not against the law of England to be a pompous prig.
Mr Ed, maybe if someone “silvers” Alison Saunders she will feel differently! Instapundit is always quoting one of the left wing icon and thug Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals that says,
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.”
I’ve got to say that whether Joshua Silver’s dobbing of Rudd was meant ironically or not, he has invented a very cool thing which might help literally millions of people.
And some of you in the UK sincerely believe that you will get your gun rights back? The UK has gone so far down the road of “progressive” lunacy that no one knows the way back and the people who left the breadcrumbs for you are probably in jail for violating some other “progressive” law there.
I hate cauliflower cheese and I’m going to write to my local police force so they can register my hatred as a non-crime.
Ah, but if your hate offense is a non-criminal hate offense instead of a criminal hate-crime, then they can prosecute you under the looser standard of proof found in civil court instead of the criminal-court standard of proof, and they can deny you the due process rights that you would be afforded if it were a criminal prosecution.
So you might want to lobby to have your own personal hate deemed criminal. It’s safer.
pete,
Have you considered that your hostility to cauliflower cheese might be unconscious discrimination?
As a judge has said at paragraph 52 here:
Now I doubt that you hate cheese on its own, it’s so varied and diverse (although you might).
But what if unconsciously, you associate ‘cauliflower’ with farms, and with agricultural work, and hence a stereotype of East European migrant workers on farms? And the cheese is just a dressing? And it evokes hatred in you!
Just be careful before confessing in writing.
Er, what is the purpose of recording a “non-crime hate incident”?
Rob,
Subtraction: All crimes – Non-hate crime = Hate crimes.
And to give people targets to meet.
Mr. Ecks,
You should read Stanislaw Lem’s “The Futurological Congress”.
Prof Silver does not seem to have been being ironic: he has been thoroughly Brillo’d though.
https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=kw6yOOTY08U
TomJ, yeah, I saw that and was updating the post. What a car crash.
Hate crime legislation was never intended to protect the vulnerable. There were already plenty of laws that could be used to protect people from real violence or harassment. The purpose was always to suppress opinions that the left-liberal establishment did not like. The entire concept of “hate speech” has never been anything more than a pretext for the arbitrary censorship of speech. So, it’s important to understand that Professor Silver has not abused the law with his actions. He has used it in exactly the way that it was intended to be used.
University academic in favour of censorship – all too normal now.
In “my day” (ancient times) the university crowd use to say “we are not in favour of your capitalist economic liberty – the liberty we care about is Civil Liberties such as Freedom of Speech”.
Now the left are consistent – they hate all aspects of liberty, they are openly totalitarian monsters. Who get massive subsidies from the taxpayer (government backed “student loans” and so on) so their universities can carry on conditioning people.
Government minister hosted on their own petard? Yes – but they will not see that. They will just think “P.C. gone mad” – they will not understand THIS IS P.C. (or “Critical Theory”) – this is what the Frankfurt School of Marxism wanted. There is no “gone mad” – this is P.C. “Hate Speech” doctrine working as it is supposed to.
By the way the local rag (the “Evening Telegraph”) is also attacking Amber Rudd – for wanting to rebuild Wellingborough prison (presently falling to bits).
Supposedly this is a “racist” “American” policy – supposedly lots of American black murderers and rapists are in prison because of “racism”. Their victims? They must be “racists” – so it is O.K. to rape or murder them. The fact that Amber Rudd has no interest in the skin colour of criminals is also (no doubt) “racist”.
One can not reason with these media people (and other such) – they were utterly corrupted at school and university. They are the “good students” who believed the Frankfurt School stuff they were taught.
And the “Conservative” government on people getting “educated” and in backing the BBC tax (the “license fee”) although government regulations ensure that “independent” television is just as P.C. – just as dominated with Frankfurt School of Marxism “Critical Theory” assumptions.
Even the adverts at the cinema are P.C. – I went to the cinema today and the adverts (from banks and so on) were all about “anti sexism” and with loads of messages about race and the environment.
Actual information about what the companies do? OF COURSE NOT – ads (made by university types) are all about race, gender, the environment (and so on). Just P.C.
Business pays for the P.C. people who will send businessmen (and their families) to the slaughter house.
If I report that Britain is freezing, can I be arrested for bringing contempt on climate alarmists? Why haven’t all the weather reporters been arrested?
Business pays for the P.C. people who will send businessmen (and their families) to the slaughter house.
Of course, Paul. Lenin was correct, just not in quite the way he envisioned.
And some of you in the UK sincerely believe that you will get your gun rights back?
Back?
Your history of gun rights in Britain is severely twisted. The only group I can think of that has historical “gun rights” in Europe is the Cossacks. The rest of the time the state has totally limited access to anything remotely resembling non-hunting firearms. Not quite to medieveal Japanese levels (forbidding them entirely, even to the ruling class) but not so far off that. Any “well regulated militia” was effectively a branch of the military, because the emphasis was on “well regulated” not “militia”. Even then European states have been very reluctant to have militias at all. That’s the way it has been, basically forever, in Europe.
You can argue that people should have guns, if you want. You shouldn’t argue that they are regaining the rights when they have never had them.
Gun rights were always just vague and customary in the UK, so not sure what you mean by “back”.
The same could be said of the USA and the collapse of property rights. And the US just elected a president who is cool with Kelo and appointed an AG who thinks asset forfeiture is just peachy. There are political battles that need to be fought in the UK but spare us any lectures from across the sea, please.
Chester:
I do not think that any political weasel will “give” us our gun rights back. rather, I forsee a day when the breakdown of civil order means that the people will simply take them back. The rights in question were never a gift from politicians, and were never theirs to take away.
A well mannered and law abiding people allowed themselves to be disarmed, but the Britain of 2017 is far removed from the Britain of 1920.
This Wikipedia article seems to disagree with Chester. Things do seem to have started gradually going downhill in the 18th century though.
When I say I want my free speech rights back, I’m well aware that the UK never had a first amendment. ‘Back’ just means a return to the days when saying something the left disliked was not followed by sacking from your apolitical job, and there were no laws under which mere dissenting speech could lead to arrest and trial. In the UK, that time ended some 13 years ago IIRC.
It was just over a century ago when the UK’s unarmed police, faced with “the siege of Sydney Street”, hastily borrowed firearms from civilian passersby, and George Orwell, aged 10, bought his first rifle for 7 shillings and and 6 (old) pence (that’s 37 and a half new pennies) from (IIRC) a shop that sold bicycles. I’m not expecting the UK to return to that state anytime soon, but it may move a little from where it is.
Indeed, and ditto for all the other rights, including that to bear arms: they are not and should not be dependent on any ‘amendments’. In fact, a friend of mine who has researched the issue, found that the 2nd Amendment was in fact about militia, as there was no need to spell out the basic right to bear arms by law-abiding US citizens. That right was thought to have been brought along from England, along with all the other rights – such as the right to own property, etc. That is, if it was even given a second thought. YMMV.
There was a huge fight during the drafting of our USA Constitution about the inclusion of what we call the Bill of Rights. The Federalist Papers are a fascinating account of this controversy. (Well, I have been accused of having a different sort of conception of “fascinating.”)
All sides recognized that the Constitution did not confer rights, but merely recognized natural rights that had always existed.
One side did not want those items we now call the Bill of Rights included because, by listing those individual rights, they might give the impression of being an exclusive list and not an illustrative one. (If you say all people have the right to green bananas, does this imply that there is no similar right to red bananas? In a contract, this rule of construction is widely followed.)
The other side wanted firm statements concerning those rights about which they felt strongly, so that no future interpretation could reasonably read them out through logic or sophistry.
Group One won the day originally. Group Two kept up the fight, though, and, one year later, the Bill of Rights – Amendments 1-10 – were added.
In some respects, the Amendments did have the effect that Group One feared. Some courts read the amendments as having an exclusionary effect – if a right is not specifically set out in the Constitution, it is deemed not to exist.
These hate speech codes represent the last stage of the progressive control over speech they do not like, via PC. It is like pulling up the ladder after you have gotten to the top – now that the PC ideas have been firmly established in academia and in the government structure, you cannot allow anyone to talk about it any more. It is settled. Further debate would be harmful and hateful.
Note that the same trick is used in the global warming debate. The science has been declared to be settled. Settled science means that there is no more debate about the issue. I wonder if global warming was intended as a trial of the concept to perfect the technique.
To my mind, it is something that religions do – it is dogma pronounced from above (or by a group of very smart people). Societies that have gone thru the Rennaisance should have gotten over this. The Progressives want to move us back to those good old days.
Yes Laird – businessmen will not “sell” the Marxists the rope with which the Marxists will hang them. Businessmen will GIVE the Marxists the rope with which the Marxists will hang them – and will apologise to the Marxists for polluting the rope by touching it.
Such is the effect of the education system.
bobby b’s history lesson on the debate over “constitutional rights” is basically correct, but I would add that the Bill of Rights didn’t just happen to come along a year after ratification. The drafting of a formal Bill of Rights was a specific condition by several states to their ratification of the Constitution. New York was the first, but several others followed. So in a very real sense there would have been no Constitution without the Bill of Rights, notwithstanding that it wasn’t adopted until later.
Niall:
I was half listening to some sort of debate on Radio 5 Live yesterday, on whether or not the police should be armed. Some ACPO dweeb was on, wittering that in the UK we apparently “police by consent”. That is of course nonsense, because if you do not do what the police tell you, they can beat you up with batons, choke you with CS gas and shock you with tasers. No consent is required.
However, the root of this cliche back in the 19th century might not have been quite so risible. The British people were rightly suspicious of continental style police forces, and were heavily armed. In that context, an unarmed police force operating in an armed society would indeed have to police “by consent”, but this canard should have died in 1920, and is nothing more than a sick joke now.
History has proved that setting down rights in writing in the Constitution was the correct decision after all. Madison didn’t think it necessary but neither could he have envisioned the mobocracy of 2016 America. And the idea that there are “other rights” is just that–an idea, metaphysics. Unless and until the state decides to formally recognize a right and to enforce it with its apparatus, such a right has no existence. And there was not then, nor is there now, agreement on “the natural rights that had always existed.” Natural rights and natural law are only concepts. If and to the extent courts or legislatures positivize them in judicial decisions or legislation, then and only then do they exist and in a sense be said to have “always existed” (but what happens if they are later repealed/overturned?).
I think you’re conflating a right with a permission.
We’ve always recognized the concept of “human rights” as rights that every person has, irrespective of whether those in power accept them.
Do I, living in a free society, have more “human rights” than those who live in less free places? I may enjoy the benefits of my rights more so than those others, but it has always been recognized that those others do have those rights. We decry the denial of human rights in bad places, not the absence of such rights.
We’ve always recognized the concept of “human rights” as rights that every person has, irrespective of whether those in power accept them.
Who is “we”? What rights, specifically? What do you mean by “recognize”?
I grant that the concept “human rights” is generally asserted. What I don’t grant is that this concept has any meaning independent of the imagination of him or her asserting it.
True. Neither does “honor”, or “good” or “evil” or “human dignity”.
They’re all just aspirational fiction. We use this nebulous and vague term “human rights” to denote a shared belief that everyone ought to have such rights, so that we know what to fight against, and for.
But the whole point here concerns the purposes and effects of our Constitution, and the thinking behind it that held that power is never granted from a government to its people, but can only arise directly in that people. That power – maybe inelegantly termed “rights” – cannot be withheld by someone’s fiat – it’s already, and always, there.