Post by jonksy on Nov 16, 2024 7:21:26 GMT
Thought police in Keir Starmer's Britain 'are like Soviet Union', warns Boris Johnson: Ex-PM attacks growing number of social media 'hate incident' probes as threat to free speech.....
Boris Johnson has attacked the growing scourge of 'thought police' in Sir Keir Starmer's Britain, comparing it to 'the Soviet Union at its worst'.
Writing in today's Daily Mail, the former prime minister says investigations by police into comments on social media come 'straight out of 1980s Romania, and the horrible curtain-twitching culture by which people reported on their friends – even their family members'.
It comes amid an increasing backlash over 'non-crime hate incidents', where already overstretched officers probe comments and actions not considered serious enough to constitute an offence.
The issue was thrust into the spotlight this week when two Essex police officers visited newspaper columnist Allison Pearson following a complaint about a social media post from a year ago, which has since been deleted.
Ms Pearson says she has not been told which message generated the accusation, or who made it. Mr Johnson said that was 'obviously wrong, and tyrannical, and redolent of the Soviet Union at its worst'.
'The police should clearly abandon immediately their investigation into this deleted tweet,' he said.
'The whole thing would be a complete joke, if it were not so serious for Allison Pearson – and for all of us living in Starmer's Britain today.'....
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14088883/Thought-police-Keir-Starmers-Britain-Soviet-Union-warns-Boris-Johnson.html
Boris Johnson has attacked the growing scourge of 'thought police' in Sir Keir Starmer's Britain, comparing it to 'the Soviet Union at its worst'.
Writing in today's Daily Mail, the former prime minister says investigations by police into comments on social media come 'straight out of 1980s Romania, and the horrible curtain-twitching culture by which people reported on their friends – even their family members'.
It comes amid an increasing backlash over 'non-crime hate incidents', where already overstretched officers probe comments and actions not considered serious enough to constitute an offence.
The issue was thrust into the spotlight this week when two Essex police officers visited newspaper columnist Allison Pearson following a complaint about a social media post from a year ago, which has since been deleted.
Ms Pearson says she has not been told which message generated the accusation, or who made it. Mr Johnson said that was 'obviously wrong, and tyrannical, and redolent of the Soviet Union at its worst'.
'The police should clearly abandon immediately their investigation into this deleted tweet,' he said.
'The whole thing would be a complete joke, if it were not so serious for Allison Pearson – and for all of us living in Starmer's Britain today.'....
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14088883/Thought-police-Keir-Starmers-Britain-Soviet-Union-warns-Boris-Johnson.html
