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I was much happier being a free speech supporter in theory. The practice turns out to be slightly unpleasant, but there we go. Two very senior police inspectors. two former Home Secretaries, a former prime minister, and they all said my tweet did not come near the threshold for a criminal investigation. I don't think people realize just how outrageous this actually is.
I haven't particularly wanted to fight. I'm not brave, but I... Some things you have to take a stand. And many of us will fight to the death for this. Alison Pearson. Britain's latest thought criminal. Welcome to Trigonometry. Well... Non-thought, non-criminal. Non-thought, non-criminal. We're going to get into all of that. But for viewers who don't know who you are, including many American people, they would have heard about a journalist who had a visit from the police.
for a tweet that wasn't even a crime. That journalist is you. Yes. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so it was the morning of a Remembrance Sunday. American listeners, viewers may not know, Remembrance Sunday is our big commemorative day for the dead of the two world wars. I was in my house in a market town in Essex.
I was still in my dressing gown. I had all my Remembrance Day black clothes and the poppies laid out. And my husband says there's two coppers at the door. And I thought that's a bit weird. But they closed off our street for a parade. So I thought... Maybe they're telling us our car's in the wrong place. I went down to policemen outside and they said they were here in connection with, I think, a hate incident. And then I said...
And then they said it was to do with a social media post a year ago. So I was quite taken aback. And I said it was obviously was going to be a tweet because that's the social media I do. And I said, can you? tell me which tweet it was because apparently I had been stirring up racial hatred and not something I do as a full-time thing. And so the guy said, we can't tell you.
what it was and then i said oh could you tell me who my accuser is so that might give me a clearer picture and he said yeah we're not allowed to tell you that either but it's not the accuser it's the victim So we have something called due process in Britain, or we used to, and usually the person who is the accuser or someone who's the accused, which was me, is innocent until proven guilty. But clearly this person who...
had complained about me was now being called by the police a victim. So I was shocked. I think only half of your brain is thinking... this is crazy and the other part is you know is panicking so i i'm a student of english literature as you guys may know so i drew myself up to my five foot three and a half inches and i said to them um
Poor guys, actually, because I think they probably thought a bit of overtime, you know, go around, tell the lady she's been a bad girl. And I said, well, today we are commemorating the dead of world wars and hundreds of thousands of British men and allied forces.
gave their lives so that we could live in a free country, not like the country they were fighting. And I said, what would they think of you, those young men, a similar age to the age you are now, if they knew that in their country, coppers could...
turn up at the door and act in a tyrannical way to a person and refuse to disclose what she'd done wrong or who was accusing her. So it looked quite... uh a little bit shamefaced they were looking down at their notes and uh yeah so that was that was what happened and what did they say to that very reasonable challenge actually i think uh I don't think they were expecting the St Crispin's Eve Shakespeare in soliloquy when they went round to warn people. To be honest, I think...
I think my recollection of what happened is pretty good, but I was very, very startled and shocked. I heard, I thought I heard incident, which I thought was this thing called a non-crime. hate incident, which is called, abbreviation NCHI. The police later claimed that they told me it was a criminal investigation under the Public Order Act. Now, I...
didn't hear that. They could have said it, but I don't know. They also said they invited me for a voluntary interview about this tweet. And I think it's something that's worth saying, because obviously I've learned a lot about... the non-crime hate incidents and that... Literally anyone can complain to the police that you have made them feel offended or made them feel unsafe. So basically, anyone who doesn't like my politics...
doesn't like me, doesn't like the newspaper I work for, which is the Daily Telegraph. Literally anyone can make that complaint, which is obviously what happened in November last year. And that was a guy in Sussex made the complaint to Sussex police. And we think at that stage, it was my offence. quote unquote, was deemed to be a non-crime hate incident. But by the time 12 months later, it had gone via the Metropolitan Police in London, come up to Essex, and somehow it had been escalated.
to a criminal investigation. And Alison, we have to get this out on the table. What was the tweet that you think this was triggered by? Well, I've never been told officially. And the Telegraph News Desk, which immediately swung in behind me, asked Essex police to confirm which tweet it was, but they refused. But then they leaked it to the Guardian newspaper, which is an interesting way to proceed. So it seems to be...
a tweet not long after the Hamas massacres of the 7th of October. And I'll be honest with you guys, when the police were on the door, because I... A couple of weeks after the massacres of 7th of October in Israel, with some friends and colleagues, I co-founded the British Friends of Israel, which was to support British Jews at a time of huge increase in anti-Semitism. Semitism in our country and also to support Israel's right to defend herself. And since that...
time, I have seen a huge increase in attacks on me, attempts to undermine me. So when the police were there, at the back of my mind, I'm thinking, this has to do with being a supporter of the Jews, isn't it? I thought it's inevitably going to be that. So the tweet The Guardian thinks it was came about because... The Remembrance Sunday of 2023. With British Friends of Israel, you may remember that there were a lot of...
pro-Gaza people out on the streets. Some statues were desecrated. We announced that we were going to be standing on Armistice Day, very solemn day, by the Winston Churchill statue and anyone. who supported British Jews, could come along and meet us there. So various people turned up, and it was great, and it was Free Speech Union people like Toby Young and Laura Doddsworth and so on.
So we were there and there was some police there and we invited them to do a selfie with our group, which had our... British Friends of Israel flag. And they turned us down quite gruffly. So that was OK. They didn't want to be in our picture. And then about a week or 10 days later...
I was on Twitter just scrolling and someone had retweeted a picture of police with a group which looked like it was a pro-Palestine group to me. That's what the picture looked like. And the guy had... who had tweeted it, said, seems clear which side they've chosen. So in a kind of casual manner, I retweeted and I said, how dare they? Police unwilling to pose with British friends of Israel, but perfectly happy to pose with the Jew haters. Now.
You know, people may say that was quite a sort of direct or rough form of words. I stand by those words. And then what happened quite quickly, I don't know, it would have been an hour or so after I'd retweeted that picture, it came up. that that was a picture that didn't date from a few months before. It was from a year ago and it wasn't in London. So I immediately deleted my tweet. And in fact...
Our prime minister, Keir Starmer, when he was the director of public prosecutions, our most senior prosecutor, somebody said to him, what do you do if you've made a mistake on Twitter? And he said, delete the tweet immediately. which is what I did. I don't know how many people saw that tweet, but it was a very narrow window in which people could see it. But this person in Sussex claimed that they had been very offended.
by that tweet then. So I made an error about the photograph. I don't feel the sentiment I was expressing. was wrong and indeed the group that was in the actual photograph has. very anti-Israel views, as it turns out, and are big fans of Osama bin Laden, which tends to be a bit of a clue, doesn't it, really? So anyway, yeah. So they're Gen Z then. Yeah. Just to say, actually, that it's a bigger story with Essex Police, who were the ones trying to pursue me. A Jewish lady wrote and said...
She had submitted a complaint to Essex police about a very anti-Semitic tweet, which was indeed pretty... Israel genocide white supremacists and a hate crime officer at Essex had replied and said, you know, you are offended. But we're not going to be looking into this because feelings were running very high at the time when the guy posted that. Now, I could say equally that when I posted mine.
which was in a few weeks of a massacre, which I travelled to Israel recently to investigate and write big reports on, my feelings were running very high. And I suppose that the broader picture, guys, is...
People get frustrated and upset and these issues that crop up, oh, you know, they do excite strong feeling. But I think... strong feeling we live allegedly in a free society and we are allowed to express strong feelings as long as we are not inciting violence and it should be said that The Telegraph and me, we approached very senior legal people, a law lord, a former solicitor general, two very senior police inspectors.
two former Home Secretaries, a former Prime Minister, and they all said, my tweet did not come near the threshold for a criminal investigation. That's ridiculous. So it didn't come near the threshold. yet they still pushed it forward. And then you look at what is happening within our legal system and the court system where people have had the most heinous crimes committed against them, and for a multitude of different reasons, they drop out of the system.
Yeah, but there's a lot about this situation. On the one hand, you think this is clearly, it's ludicrous, right? So it's almost so bad, it's funny. But it's sinister, Frances. It's sinister. I'm a law-abiding person. I'm in my home. I've got the police round to my door. There are... Neighbours around me who've had cars stolen from their drive. They've had their shops broken into. My neighbour Anne had £20,000 of jewellery stolen from her small antique shop round the corner.
They were given a crime number, texted a crime number, the police wouldn't come. But they were prepared to come for speech, which they deemed to be hateful. but actual crimes that I would still say the vast majority of British people would be their priority for police to investigate. go uninvestigated, unlooked at. So we've got a massive disconnect in our country between police are more comfortable now policing speech than they are doing policing.
And why do you think that is? Well, unfortunately, as a reluctant free speech martyr, I have to say... I've had discussions with Constantine in the past about his excellent book. And I was much happier being a free speech supporter in theory. The practice turns out to be slightly... unpleasant, but there we go. Let's not skip over that, Alison, because I think, you know, different people will respond differently to situations like this, but you've talked about this being quite...
I don't know what the right word would be, harassing or unpleasant for you. And there are people who will say, well, some police turned up at your door, what's the big deal? Why was it so unpleasant for you, the way that this went down? Because they accused me of, I was on a criminal, potentially a criminal charge for stirring up racial hatred as serious. which the commissioner for police in Essex, Roger Hurst, went on the radio station and he talked about crimes like mine.
crimes, which could command a seven-year prison sentence. So I think that the police... So you thought when these guys are at your door, I could be getting nicked for years here. No, I think that wasn't that then. I think it was more the threat of this hangs over you. So when you go to bed, you don't sleep very well and then you wake up and there's a kind of immediate, your first thought on waking up is...
But I'm under police investigation for something I consider to be almost nothing. But they say about things like this that the process is the punishment. And I think that's really right. And it's almost like, I guess, you've got... experience of this in a Labour MP, actually, Graham Stringer in the House of Commons talked about the Stasi-like treatment of Alison Pearson. And you think, I mean...
Coming out of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, of course, the great satirists and the great writers talked about the sort of... Absurd? It's absurd. OK, but they make up things. And then the more you protest, the more the noose tightens. Right. So you can say, I don't want to engage with this process because it's clearly outrageous.
don't have that option. So obviously I got in touch with the Free Speech Union and my friend Toby Young, who is the founder of the Free Speech Union, and I gave him a description of what had happened. And he said, many, many people, I mean, all walks of life. Thousands and thousands of people have been given these non-crime hate incidents, including a former Home Secretary. Amber Rudd, for a speech she gave at the Conservative Party conference when she was the Home Secretary.
So the person who was in charge, overall ministerial charge of the legal system in our country, was herself given one of these. apparently fatuous, idiotic things which can have a real effect on your life. For example, if I have a non-crime hate incident on my record, then I may not be allowed to work with children.
I wouldn't be able to be a trustee of a charity. I gave a big speech for the Sick Children's Trust last night and I joked to the audience that I was lucky to be there because, you know, obviously if I had not fought back against this charge, then I would. wouldn't be able to do a lot of the work that I do. But it's frightening. And I think of myself as living in a free country.
And you suddenly realise that there are people who think there are limits on speech, even things that were clearly not crimes. Now, something I have found out. Lots of serving and former police officers have broken cover to tell me that at the College of Policing, so let's just go back to the beginning. The non-crime hate incidents really started with the Stephen Lawrence murder case, a horrible, horrible case of a young black guy standing at a bus stop set about by...
racist thugs. Now, there were various findings from the McPherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence case, which suggested that had some of these people been stopped when they were at the stage of hateful speech, maybe it wouldn't have ended up in the murder of Stephen. So that thought, the College of Policing, which
doesn't make laws, it's not parliament, came up with these non-crime hate incidents. They're not within the criminal law and they're not really within the civil law. They sit in this very, very awkward grey area. And this meant that any expressions of any... thing could be that the police could turn up.
And slap these on. They've slapped them on children, for example, just to give you a kid in the playground who has called someone a bad word. That child, age nine, got one of these non-crime hate incidents. So he wouldn't. be able to travel outside the country, potentially. So for me, the more interesting thing... is that the ex-police and serving police say that the College of Policing has been entirely captured by woke ideology. They are committed to turning the UK into a progressive utopia.
The police officers who are doing their training are not really being taught a lot about nuts and bolts policing, like catching actual bad people, but they are told that there are these protected characteristics, and that's on the basis of... skin colour, religion, sexuality. So essentially, if the person who decides to make the complaint to the police that you or I have said something hateful, it's a much stronger claim.
if they're a black person or a Muslim or a trans person. So essentially now we have a lot of the higher echelons of policing are completely captured. by a progressive ideology, which I would suggest is not shared by the bulk of my... fellow citizens who think that the police should solve their burglaries. But that's not what's happening. And if you look, there's been a huge increase in these hate crimes. And just to say that, under the last Conservative government...
Suella Braverman, she was our Home Secretary. And she could see that these were sinister and could lead to have very, very bad chilling outcomes. And she suggested to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, that these should be scrapped. But of course, the so-called conservatives have been frightened of the liberal intelligentsia. So they said, obviously, the prime minister said, no, no, we can't scrap. the non-hate crimes and um
But she was allowed to introduce a statutory guidance, a code of conduct. And that code of conduct says if you're approaching someone accused, before you do it, use your common sense. think, is this in the public interest? Will this person, Alison, pose a serious threat of violent disorder. I mean, I do nothing else, as you know. You're lucky the room hasn't been set on fire. And that code of conduct, the police were supposed to be abiding by that.
It's just got worse and worse. So we now have a situation where, as we've had various, various senior people speaking out this week, former Lord Hogan Howe, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, our most senior. said this is obviously very bad and open to abuse. And Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court judge, said it's basically a charter for grudges.
The thing that I find worrying about all of this is, on the one hand, you go, well, all of these notable figures within the establishment have come out and said and condemned it, and I think that's good. Then I look over at Keir Starmer and all his lot, and I think... Well, it's going to get worse, isn't it? Well, yes. I think that if my case can do anything, it's possibly act as a slightly shaming...
short term shaming tactic. Yvette Cooper, now the Home Secretary in the Labour government, was apparently going to increase the number of opportunities for hate crime. claims. But this week she swiftly executed a bit of a U-turn and said, we need common sense in the application of these. And the Prime Minister, when he was questioned last week,
He too said the same, you know, reassuring words. We really don't want them policing tweets. We want them policing crimes because the prime minister knows that... Those are the views of the vast majority of people. Would Labour like to have everyone on the hook for hate crime? Absolutely, they would. Yeah, absolutely. But we have to say, unfortunately, that they can...
government allow these things to take hold and flourish. I suppose that one of the basis of my ongoing claims against them will be how on earth. was the stupid non-crime hate incident. Do you know what? I hate saying that. Let me tell you why I hate saying that. So I am a student of English literature.
And I loved, as a kid from a home with not very many books in it, I did at school George Orwell's Selected Essays, and that became a very treasured book for me. It's still my most thumbed book online. bookshelf. And he wrote Politics and the English Language and Why I Write. And those are touchstones to me. And whenever I sit down to write a column, I always think of Orwell.
Choose an Anglo-Saxon word. Don't choose a Latinate word. Sometimes you can break that rule, but mainly that's a good rule. Choose a short, pithy word. So that was a great touchstone for me. And all well said, if politicians are using ugly language... that's because the thing behind it is ugly. And he talked about, he said that these sentiments...
are like prefabricated sections of a chicken coop. Now, a non-crime hate incident is peak prefabricated sections of a chicken coop. It's an ugly phrase for an ugly thing.
It's meaningless. What is a non-crime hate incident? I can tell you exactly what it is, because Orwell wrote about this in the preface to Animal Farm, which... I discovered very late in life and I wish more people had read it because in that he talks about how difficult it was for him to publish Animal Farm and it wasn't because of official censorship.
It was because of what he talked about as soft censorship. And that's where people voluntarily censor themselves because they know the repercussions. of not doing so. And that's what this is. That is what it's designed to do. It's designed to intimidate people into not saying the things that they know to be true. Yes, that's exactly right. And even, I mean, I'm... Obviously, I'm a weekly columnist and...
There's a battle on the whole time. I work for a right-leaning, very, very, very successful, wonderful, I think, refuge for all the views that millions of people hold dear. But even there, they are an uphill. struggle against this ideology. So just to give you an example. A while ago, I wrote a column about someone who described himself as a pregnant man. And I said, yeah, it's not a pregnant man, is it? Because, you know, something women do that men don't do, which is get pregnant.
There goes our monetisation. Thank you very much for that. You know, uterus, vagina, woo, you know, all that old stuff, you know, has been going on for a few thousand years, hasn't it really? And so... I wrote that column in my usual quite fiery way, defending women and feeling very, very annoyed about the pregnant man. So then the reader's comments started coming in and they were saying, why are you calling the pregnant man he? Now I had submitted a piece which...
said she throughout, her, she. That had been changed in the editing process. Now, I'm not accusing people because that's... That's what most people do. What Constantine has described is soft censorship. Most people think it's easier, right? Because you know you're going to get complaints. So I said to my immediate line editor, That's being changed back now. All those pronouns are going to be changed back.
because you've made me look ridiculous, I'm saying there isn't a pregnant man and you've called it he, right? And the breeders are furious and they expect us to defend the values which I'm defending, not to succumb to that soft censorship. And then... They said, well, the lawyer said, let's go with the other thing. And I said, it's not a legal matter. I'm the opinion columnist. My opinion goes into my column. And then they said, yeah, but...
These people will report the paper to the Complaints Commission and then they will generate vast amounts of work and paperwork. So we'd rather avoid, for obvious reasons, the vast amounts of complaints and paperwork. So it's easier. They make it. They make these complaints, and in the end, even the sane will go along with their nonsense. So I'm just saying that, and this is not a criticism. I mean, I'm so lucky.
to work for The Telegraph, and they have been absolutely in my corner this last fortnight. I mean, we wouldn't have got the result we've got probably if they hadn't, you know, come out and just really gone for Essex Police in the most kind of... The best tradition. Well, tell us about that. So...
These guys turn up at your door. They tell you you're guilty of all these things or been accused at least. The guy whose job it is to oversee the policing for that part of the country goes on radio and says, you know, Alison is committed. a crime effectively, which you're not supposed to do in this country because until you've been charged and convicted, you haven't committed a crime. You've been accused of one, right? It's a big difference, I would argue. And then a backlash started.
which I'm very glad it did. And how did you go from there and what was the result? So actually, Roger Hurst, the police and crime commissioner, That was following my fight back. So I rang on the Monday after the police had been around on the Sunday. I rang my editor, Chris Evans. And I was describing what had happened and he said, that's outrageous, absolutely outrageous. So then obviously then got the news team together. And I then published in my Wednesday column what had happened.
just describe what had happened in my sense of shock and obviously distress. I was, you know, I was veering between defiant and tearful, which I guess, you know, most people can understand that was a kind of real switchback of emotions. And the news desk guys started to lift the lid on some of Essex Police's behaviour. They published a wonderful chart showing how little actual crime.
the police solved. Very, very low figures for burglary, assault, violence of all kinds. But quite... much better figures for racially or religiously motivated crime or hate crime. If we were going to be cynical gentlemen now, who would want to be that? The crimes you could solve sitting on your fat bottom, dunking a biscuit into a large cup of tea while you were working from home.
All right, so not the crimes where you might actually have to go and be spat at by drug dealers or any of these people who most people would like to be kept safe. So the paper was every day, keeping up the pressure. really good stories, looking at Essex police and then starting to get prominent people, you know, people in the law, people in the media to...
start commenting on what had happened to me. And this really built up a head of steam. And I can't remember, Roger Hirst appeared on the LBC radio show. And not only did he say crimes like this carry a sentence of up to seven years, which I took to be intimidating, I think he was part of the let's get out there and... Far from apologising for the stupid overreaction, draconian overreaction of coming to my house, they double down.
And one of the things he said, which really, really annoyed me. So it was quite good I was annoyed because actually I might have just thought, let's just go to bed and not wake up. But you two sort of have quite dark thoughts. I thought, he said about my tweet, he said, let's think about how Miss Pearson's tweet would have been heard by our Black and Asian communities. I just thought... I've got Black and Asian friends in Essex.
They don't think about themselves as living in a black or Asian community. They think about themselves as being British people. And they think, if my shop is burgled, I'd like the police to come around. Thanks very much. They don't want the stupid expense of... two officers on a Sunday morning to police me for something I said a year ago that was deleted. So I felt that he was reflecting.
The mindset of these police, which I believe is racist, I think it is the, what do they call it, the bigotry of softer expectations, don't they? These people are going to be annoyed about the tweet. The friends I spoke to from... of that type just laughed I mean my
two friends of Indian background originally. And I said to them, do you think I go around stirring up racial hate? Because they absolutely fell about. And Jay said, I can't do the West Midlands accent, sadly. But he said, that's bollocks, that is. And I thought... It really gladdened my heart because hearing them laughing, because I thought they're going to think they see headlines, you know, Alison Pearson racist tweets. What are they going to think of me?
They're going to think of me. And they just said, that's bollocks, isn't it? And I thought, such a gift. Sometimes people give you a gift, don't they? That was a gift from Jay and Rucci to me. was that's bollocks, isn't it? Because they know I'm not that person. And then Boris Johnson, wonderful writer as well as former prime minister, wrote an amazing essay in the Daily Mail where he just said, when we were kids... We read about the Soviet Union and behind the Iron Curtain and we...
We used to think, oh, my God, imagine, you know, we're so lucky we don't live in a place where people can come to your door and accuse you, falsely accuse you of things or make stuff up that you've said or thought. And he said, now, this is what they're doing to Alison. is exactly the kind of thing we used to think. See, Alison, forgive me, but this is why, with all respect, you lose me completely, and I'll tell you why.
I don't give a shit about Boris Johnson writing an article. The Tories were in power for 14 years. Why is this still on the books? Why is this law still on the books? And by the way, why is the current conservative leadership not? They're talking about we need to review. No, we don't need to review anything. We need to scrap all this crap. Why wasn't this removed already? Why do former prime ministers write articles in newspapers? Well, that's true, but...
Sorry that my anger at this situation seems to be unleashed towards you. It really isn't. But I'm just saying, how have we ended up in this position? Because, by the way, for people who don't know, this Roger Hearst guy, who's the police blah, blah, blah. He's a Conservative. Yes. What the hell is going on here? Well, as we know, Conservative is now a broad and meaningless category.
Yeah, absolutely. I know what you mean. If you're in that spot yourself, you become very grateful when people articulate the point of view very well. And we have obviously not just Boris, but Lionel Shriver. my friend who wrote beautifully in The Spectator about the craziness of this hate crime culture. I think that we know that the Conservatives have... been taken over you know I think there are huge numbers of the party which while in government
just effectively became what they call One Nation Conservatives, which basically means not paying any attention to the country, I think, One Nation. It's basically anyone outside... No Nation Conservatives. No Nation Conservatives, anyone outside our social circle.
don't want to seem to be outside the sort of stifling liberal consensus you know they've got the sort of metropolitan viewpoint we had uh the um news agents podcast which is sort of emily journalists like emily maitless and john sopal and they had a debate about my case and they uh said that it was ridiculous. I was suffering a persecution complex. And you think, yeah, it's not really a persecution complex when you've got police. That's actually persecution. So I think that...
Same reason why the pregnant man is kept as him. Because... People want a quiet life. The people who support these views, I would still argue, are a very, very vociferous, aggressive minority. And they just think, well, we won't offend them. And what happens is that, as we've seen, we've just seen this week, it's a bigger issue, but we've seen record immigration figures last year, absolutely insane, a million people allowed into our country, many of whom will make...
zero contribution to national wealth and well-being. But that was allowed as well. Same kind of thing. just go you know go with the flow this makes us look progressive modern not like dyed in the wool horrible old racist tories it's that kind of thing they you know they um They prefer to, you know, listen to Stonewall. The Conservative government allowed trans influencers, trans pressure groups.
to come very close to the centre of government, you know, flying the pride flag, I would argue as a mainstream conservative, entirely inimical to what... people like me want and believe should be happening but they did it anyway because they were complacent and they had a large majority and they
paid bugger all attention. Alison, can I stop you there? No, no, no, you shouldn't apologise. You're just both British. You apologise, she apologises, then we can move on. Yeah, both identify as trans and move on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. If you value honesty, integrity and diversity, all things that are increasingly lacking in established media, then consider supporting us at Trigonometry. As a member, you'll get ad-free and extended interviews, plus exclusive content.
Click the membership link on the podcast description or find the exclusive episodes link on your podcast listening app to join us. But you were saying, you know, it's complacency. It's this, it's that. And this is why I'm going to push back on you. I don't think it's complacency, Alison. I don't think it's the things that you've said. I think it's one thing, and it's an unpleasant word, but it's a word that accurately sums up this entire situation. It's cowardice, isn't it? Let's be honest.
Yeah, no, that's a good word. Yeah, it is cowardice because when you stick your head above the parapet, then, you know, people... Guess what? People come round to your house and tell you you're racist or you're transphobic or whatever. And there are a few of us. You know, there was a well-known case, Harry Miller, former policeman, who was told he...
tweeted something transphobic, police came round to his house and Harry amazingly fought it all the way to the Court of Appeal. And the Court of Appeal said, yeah, free speech should trump almost everything. That's what I believe that. And there are a few exceptions, you know, people saying going around to set fire to a place of worship, obviously, but free speech should. But we have become cowardly and we don't defend our values.
And we see them trickling away. And it's very sad. And I just should say that I haven't particularly wanted to fight. People say you're brave. No. I'm not particularly brave, but I see this as me having a platform and... being able to speak for clearly thousands of people. The Free Speech Union thinks that 65 people every day get one of these non-crime hate.
absurdities slapped on them so what i can do the least i can do is you know make a make a fuss make a stink write about me um but but really it's for people i've asked people to send in their own uh examples which loads of them are tumbling in now some stuff you could hardly believe i mean it's mental and uh I want to try and use the pressure we're built. You know, we've managed to build up some pressure and we are, I think, I, if...
If I could have done one thing in the last fortnight, it would be to make a police officer who's about to send someone out to knock on someone's door, to make him think twice. Just think, maybe this person. doesn't deserve that. So maybe some good will come of it. You're talking about rights trickling away. Recently, a Labour MP got up in Parliament and was talking about the implementation of...
Blasphemy laws. Thank you, Mr Speaker. November marks Islamophobia Awareness Month. Last year... the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Quran, despite opposition from the previous government. Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets?
of the Abrahamic religions. And Keir Starmer seemed receptive. Well, he didn't seem receptive. He was just there nodding vigorously. And you're thinking to yourself, am I... What's going on here? Well, I think that would be one of the goals of this Labour government will be to bring in much harsher... hate crime legislation which will make it illegal to criticize any aspect of Islam and that's not our country in our country I mean I'm a
a lapsed Christian. I was a Sunday school teacher many decades ago. And, you know, Christianity is open, open season. Everyone can have cartoons of Christ and so on. whatever. But yeah, I thought that was, it is sinister. But we are, I think, I'm not sure if we're still at the end of it, but we were in Islamophobia awareness month.
It's a smooth transition. You have Pride Month, then Islamophobia Awareness, then Sucker Guy Off Month. It's just going to keep going. I mean, could you have Islamophobia Month and LGBTQ Pride Month at the same time? Absolutely. They go very well together. Yeah, they go very well together. In fact, in our recent, we had some marvellous local elections in Britain where the Green Party was being supported by some quite...
vocal Muslim people and the sort of LGBTQ community. And you did think looking forward to that party conference because, you know, one group hates them. But look, I mean, I've been campaigning against anti-Semitism for the last year because that's obviously... been really horrific and this week we saw three little Jewish girls walking along, had bottles thrown at them, one child was admitted to hospital. We're hearing about daily now British Jews leaving.
We've got about a quarter of a million Jews in the UK and many of them are now thinking this isn't going to be a safe place for us to live. And that grieves me. They are one of our... No, I don't want to say patronising the most astonishing community that integrated, makes a brilliant contribution to British life, every science, business, arts. There wouldn't be a musical on West End without the Jews.
So yeah, but we have an entirely Islamophobia awareness month. And yet the attacks, I would say that the biggest racist threat at the moment is against Jewish people. But that comes back to my tweet, doesn't it? Which was...
No, I was just going to say, you know, one of the things that I think really resonated, as you know, the story had transatlantic and frankly world resonance. And I think... I don't want to sound snobby in any way, but I think when we think of someone being investigated by the police for a hate crime, you sort of imagine a...
bloke with a Millwall tattoo on his forehead or something. Just like me. Well, right. And you sort of, and then in this case, not only is that not your profile, but more than that, you're a journalist. You're a journalist. You represent a profession, much disgraced in recent years, frankly, by the behavior of many journalists, but nonetheless, a profession whose job it is to speak as freely as possible.
whose job it is to hold government and policing to account. That's the job of journalists, among other things. So this isn't just an individual citizen. This seems to me, and to many people, I think... like whether by accident or by design, an attempt to prevent people from actually talking about things that matter in the public square. Yes, absolutely. I mean, we have a free speech and a free press are the cornerstones of a liberal democracy, aren't they?
somewhat shocking to me this past 10 days to discover how many journalists are prepared to have me thrown under the bus so they can say oh yeah well you know maybe what she said wasn't very nice I can say what I like. You may not like it. You don't have to. Guess what? You don't have to read it. You don't have to follow me. You know, you don't have to buy the telegraph if our views are disgusting to you.
choose some other views. So we have had, as you say, Constantine, we've had the Wall Street Journal saying a headline, you know, British police, police thoughts and not much else. That's America. So we're seeing this huge contrast, aren't we, with the... Trump administration incoming is going to set its face against all these, while our society here is doubling down on these atrocious things. I think British people have no idea of the way that this...
issues seen in British police, by the way. I was in America. We were there for the election while this story broke. And I got in an Uber. And the first thing the guy said to me when he heard my British accent was, what do you think about the police going to journalist houses over tweets? He didn't know who I was, just randomly asked. This story has worldwide resonance. And I think it's because they're seeing one of the world's oldest democracies, one of the bastions of freedom.
Being a society in which this sort of thing happens, I just, I don't think people realise just how outrageous this actually is. But coming back to what you said about clamping down. So we had, back in the summer, we had a massacre. of little girls in Southport in a Taylor Swift holiday dance club for little girls. And a person who was accused of that crime, three little girls were slaughtered.
with a knife and at least five other children were very badly wounded and their teacher so it was a horrific event and i remember reading that the media when these outlandish crimes The police said it wasn't a terrorist incident. So we'll take that at face value. But when those events happen the media and everyone else swings into a particular pattern of suppressing the natural reactions of people. It's not a terrorist event.
don't worry, the accused is a lovely, was a choir boy, sweet guy, no one said anything badly of him, you know, helped old ladies across the road. And then I read they said he was... Cardiff born. Cardiff is the capital of Wales where I was born. And I just thought, don't call him Welsh. I mean, really, you know, this is... You know, Welshmen don't have a great tradition of running amok with knives amongst little girls.
The reaction to that massacre was they all want to, the government, the state, the police, they want it to go away as quickly as possible. So people were tweeting and because the police refused to be honest about the identity. of the person, alleged murderer. that then there was a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories came into that space. And they cracked down on those people absolutely brutally. And if you want to know what I honestly think, I think...
multiculturalism in our country is in huge trouble. We have allowed in millions and millions of people, some of whom, many of them are becoming great productive citizens, but... a significant minority of whom hate our way of life, they hate our values, they don't want to integrate. And this is causing massive problems. And the states answer, the politicians...
I imagine if they think about it at all, are really scared. And the only way they can deal with it now is to silence the mass of ordinary people who think it's disgraceful. So this is all to do is mass uncontrolled immigration threatening our country and its values. I'm a woman. I see those undocumented young males from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia coming across the channel. And I think they will pose, they potentially pose a threat.
to British women and girls, all right? Violence gets women and girls is on the increase in our country. And those guys are coming from places where women are regarded as livestock, right? So it's dangerous to let them in. particularly undocumented young males. If you start writing about this, no doubt the next time I tweet about this, I'll have another non-crime hate incident against me. But I won't shut up. And many of us will fight to the death.
for this because they will not change the nature of our country, right? And allow these things to come in and have dissent silenced and freedom of speech silenced. Actually, I'm sounding braver than I am. I'm not brave, but I... Some things you have to take a stand. Alison, and it's very interesting you say that because what I see the Labour government doing is kicking the can down the road. The way that they silenced and they smeared everybody who went on these protests as far right.
But eventually the truth comes out and there is going to be a court case in January. Yeah. And... Obviously, there's a large part of me that goes, that is a good thing. There's a significant part of me that is utterly terrified of what's going to happen because there's only so long you can silence the truth for.
And then when it gets revealed in all its unpleasant goriness, that's when things have the potential to get ugly. And that's what I'm worried about. Well, they tried to slip out, didn't they, recently? I think it was when you guys were in the States. snuck out around the presidential election. In fact, the choir boy from Wales. Yes, he did have, allegedly had an al-Qaeda training manual in his house and was brewing a bioweapon. Allegedly. Allegedly brewing an alleged bioweapon.
brewing an alleged bioweapon. Now, say what you like about my house in Saffron Walden, but cooking up ricin on the stove is not something I do. So, yeah, I agree with you, Francesa. I don't know where it will all end. And one fears it's not going to end well. And I think that... We could be moving eventually to a much further right government. I mean, people like me now, I would say I was an absolute middle-of-the-road conservative. I voted twice for Tony Blair's New Labour.
But people like me now are branded far-right for, I think, defending the centre-right ground pretty much. So I think we could possibly head to... are far, far right. If they don't address this, we could be heading for something much worse. And if their idea of defending the indefensible is arresting and imprisoning for over two years a Tory councillor's wife who had no previous convictions, who tweeted something very unpleasant and racist.
On the spur of the moment, the woman had, Lucy Connolly, had lost a child in horrible circumstances. She was clearly upset. She tweeted and then she deleted quickly. And that woman is now... on a wing in a prison with people who have murdered people because she expressed herself on social media. I find that really chilling. It is. And as well, the problem with lying...
which I see a lot of this government, look, all governments do and all politicians do, of course they do. But the cover-up and the lies is what you do when you cover things up is you distort reality. And you don't only distort the reality of the people you're lying to, you distort your reality as well, which is why lies are so dangerous, particularly for the person who said to them.
And I'm looking at this Labour government and I'm thinking to myself, do you actually live in the real world with what you talk about? Because... The vast majority of people who I talk to, and I make a point of talking, trying to talk to everyone because I think it's important, the cabbies, the Uber drivers, the people working in the supermarket, I like to have a chat with them and get to know them and to actually see what's happening with this country.
What they talk about and what ordinary people talk about, it's two different realities, isn't it? And that's a huge problem. Absolutely it is. And I guess like you, I'm, you know, I'm... Obviously, I'm part of the media. I live outside London. I mix with, you know, regular people. And, you know, my little office I rent was above Coral's Bookmakers.
And the guys in there, guys in there came out and said, oh, thank God you got rid of that nonsense. You know, the reaction of normal people to my case has been people coming up, giving me plants, bottles of wine. Yeah, I think that, but a really quite narrow... I don't like that using the word elite. It's a bit hackneyed, isn't it? But it's a group of opinion formers who have a very strong, you know, they impose their narrative on people. And I think...
people go along, perhaps nod along. I think most people just think it's rubbish. And I think worse than that, if this... protected characteristics. If it is indeed the case now that the police are essentially policing to protect the protected groups against the white majority, I mean... What situation are we in there? No one's voted for that, have they?
This is a potentially very inflammatory and combustible situation. And I think we see that in many instances now of... housing and lots of things we we've got a health service that doesn't function in a first world way because of the pressure on it of partly because of the pressure on it of of inward migration and people who are starting to think nothing works, we're paying huge taxes. You're creating, you're almost creating a situation where there could be, you know, civil unrest.
And you mentioned the role of some media outlets and all of this. And look, the news agents is just where you go to find out how really neutral, in inverted commas, the BBC has always been because it's... Former BBC people being like rabidly far left, progressive, woke, etc. All of it. What I found really shocking, I know that seems like a minor point, but we have this satirical magazine in this country. called private eye whose job it is to lampoon the people in power to lampoon
bureaucrats, to lampoon governments, to lampoon politicians, to lampoon the people who abuse the rights and privileges they have by virtue of their position. That's what The Private Eye has always done. And I used to get a subscription to... regularly. And when I saw an article in private eye... defending the police and attacking you. That's where I was like, I have no idea what is going on in these people's heads anymore. How can a satirical magazine take the side of the police?
when it comes to enforcing anti-speech legislation. How is that possible? Well, they've fallen through the looking glass, haven't they? Well, look, I think they are pretty misogynist, actually. Superannuated public school boys. They obviously don't like me and they, you know, they do that. I don't care if they don't like you. That's not the point. The point is they are a magazine whose job it is to make fun of things and they are defending a...
police officers who go to the journalist doors to intimidate them about a thing that's clearly not a crime and should never be a crime in a civilized society. Well... There were lots of comments, mainly of the, I've cancelled my subscription. And they said, you know, it is the Voltaire thing, isn't it? You know, we may not like it, but I'll defend the death. Right. They're right to say it. And I hope.
I would have the sense and the magnanimity were it someone who was politically opposed to me, like, you know, a Guardian journalist, I hope I'd be straight out of the traps and saying, we can't have... Police visiting journalists, you know, that seems to me fundamental. But things have become very, very tribal.
haven't they? And yeah, I thought it was disgraceful that I didn't read it particularly because I could see that some things you want to spare yourself. But I think this idea as well that, you know, I was playing up. or was, you know, being hysterical or making a lot of it. I am hearing in the last two weeks cases being brought against...
normal families or people, children, which are absolutely outrageous and have no place in our society, right? So it's not just me. Obviously, I've used my experience. This is what journalists... have the privilege of doing. You can use your position to make the general case that this is, you know, if I've got former Home Secretaries weighing in behind me, lucky me. But the general principle is that people with no access to connections or any platform.
are you know being frightened it's very very frightening you don't want the police to be you know at your door or on your case And one other thing with the media was the Sunday Times last week published, Essex Police had leaked to them part of the transcript of the conversation, which I didn't, I wasn't aware. that the police were recording on my door. I believe the police are supposed to tell you the accused, whatever I am, I'm an accuser, victim.
incident that they were recording. But anyway, they were recording our conversation and the Sunday Times published Redacted. elements of it which of course backed up the Essex police's view that I'd misrepresented the conversation again I thought that was extraordinary that during a live investigation that the police would leak.
a conversation which I don't think they were legally entitled to leak. But the fact that they were really, again, intimidating me by getting people like Private Eye to say, she lied about that conversation. I'm not saying I got it 100% right, because I would argue that anyone with the police in front of them would be slightly panicking and not necessarily. But I would say that 97% of what I reported was completely...
Correct. And it acted as a smokescreen for the police. It deflected from the central question of should they ever have sent police to my door, which 100% they should not. nothing criminal about my tweet. So that the private eye thing is, oh, she lied about what happened. What about the fact that police were investigating a tweet for which didn't come near?
didn't come near to being a crime. So that doesn't seem to be important. What's important is I'm making a big deal of it. It's only just police popping around for a quiet word. Can they hear themselves? I don't think they can and I think you were right to raise this issue. I know that many people around the world with big audiences and big platforms have been paying attention to this.
Elon Musk got involved. And this is a big global issue. People should make no mistake about this whatsoever. This is going to be an issue in this country. It's going to be an issue in all of Europe. It's an issue in America only to the extent that they've now actually turned the tide on this stuff, we hope. But this is really important that you draw your attention to this. And I fear we're going to have to keep drawing attention to this issue until it gets resolved.
And as Francis says, you know, this is going to have to turn around one way or another. And I hope that way is peaceful and democratic. I really, really do. Well, I mean, the Telegraph's campaign is going to go on to try and get these. Orwellian, Kafkaesque, non-crime hate incidents just killed off. They should have no part of our...
of our legal system at all. And I'm inviting anyone. I've said to people, don't be ashamed because they want you to be ashamed. They want you to be frightened to say this bad thing's happened to me. I'm ashamed. It's not you who should be ashamed.
So people doing it to you. So inviting people to come forward with their stories where there's been inappropriate activity with the police. And if we have to fight them one stupid case at a time, we will do it. We will expose them. I've already got, you know. a dossier the papers um Publishing a story, Telegraph's publishing a story. Today, a lady and her family were out having a horse ride to, this is allegedly, to travellers.
drove a car at them, frightened the horses, horse nearly fell into a ditch. Everyone was very, very scared. The guys... These two guys got out of the car, came towards the family. They thought they were carrying a knife. They think it may have been a screwdriver. Lots of...
arguing between the dad, the mum, my source, the mum, called her Anna, was very, very frightened. She dialed the police and she spoke to them and she said, oh my god please come please come it's horrible there are these effing pie keys here and pie key for american viewers is sort of slang for travelers or gypsies and the police turned up at their house about half an hour later And they took down the statement and then they said to Anna, a 42-year-old woman.
military family, very respectable. They said, yeah, we're going to need you to come down to the station because her call to the police, 999, was recorded and she'd used the hate word, pikey. So this lady, British lady, kind, decent person is in shock because she emailed me and she said, am I going mad? I've reported something very dangerous and threatening.
And they're saying, it's your word against theirs. We're not investigating the guys who nearly drove your horses off the road. We're going to get you. We're speaking on the day that Anna... It's having to go into the police station to make a statement about using a word when she was very, very frightened. And that is absolutely nuts.
And I was able to put her in touch with the Free Speech Union. And fortunately, the lovely solicitor, Loya, who helped me, Luke Gittos, is accompanying Anna today to that interview. And honest to God. If they prosecute her for doing that, I will unleash whatever powers I have to, I mean, that is... If you were to try that out on any person in the street, who would say that was okay?
You're sounding pretty brave there, Alison. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for doing what you've done to raise awareness of this issue. I really think this is a big fight and it's going to run and run and run. And it's going to take a lot more than just you and a lot more people are going to have to stand up. for themselves and for the principles that are really at stake here. So thank you so much for coming on. We're going to go and ask you...
questions from our supporters on Substack in a moment. Before we do, we always wrap up with the same question. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? Before Alison answers a final question, at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our Substack.
The link is in the description and you'll see this. Why is it that British politicians do not work to the will of the majority of the people? Should of can't be abolished. Do you think the police would have reacted in the same way? for exactly the same alleged tweet if you were black or Asian. I think coming on from what you've just said... We are going to have to have in 2029, we're going to have to have.
I believe there will be a Conservative government returned. And I think it will probably be an alliance between Reform Party and the Conservative Party. And the Conservative Party is going to have to jettison any of these one nation people who don't. to think any of the stuff we're talking about today is very polite. Let's not mention it. But I think that these institutions, the police...
The university's justice itself is absolutely infested with people who don't put the British people first, right? And they have come to see we are a warped society. where we have come to see every other point of view except our own. That makes us warped. Our civilization is under threat by those people. So I think what I would say is that we are going to have the fight of our lives. And I think normal people who just think...
Hey-ho, this is what happens. Everyone is going to have to fight it at school level, at college level, at the police level. We're going to have to... I may run against Roger Hirst, the commissioner for police for Essex, for the Reform Party, because if that man stands as a conservative, a fake conservative for that role, which he took on false pretenses because he's...
not a conservative, as he's proven by his behaviour. People like me who would think I'm not that kind of person, I don't want to put myself forward for office or... school governor or whatever. We're just going to have to do it because they are everywhere and we cannot allow them to colonize. kidnap our society and kick our values, we're just going to have to stand up. Head on over to Substack to hear Alison answer your questions.
How long do you think before the influence of the Trump administration bleeds into the British body politic, and by extension policing, to end this corruption of our national life?