UK News

Police Scotland is grappling with potential budgetary pressures and service reductions. David Threadgold of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has raised concerns about the financial impact of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. According to him, the legislation has already led to an overload of calls, with over 6,000 logged since its enactment.

Threadgold's worry centers on the unforeseen costs of handling these cases, particularly the overtime payments for control room staff. He believes these expenses will reverberate throughout the year, affecting other police services. Calum Steele, former general secretary of the SPF, echoes these concerns. As reported by The Scotsman, Steele criticized Police Scotland's preparation for the Act, calling it negligently unprepared and pointing out that the additional costs were predictable.

The legislation's impact extends beyond financial strains. The Act has resulted in a notable rise in the logging of non-crime hate incidents, incidents perceived as hateful but not necessarily criminal. This increase has prompted concerns about a potential inundation of trivial or malicious complaints, especially in the context of highly charged events like football matches. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has already lodged a complaint over a tweet he posted being logged as a hate incident.

Ofcom has tried to explain how it twists its rules to try and claim that politicians commenting on news are somehow 'newsreaders'. Ofcom writes:

This document sets out Ofcom's Decisions on five cases involving politicians acting as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters on television.

Our Broadcasting Code requires that broadcast news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality, and that a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.

Ofcom recognises that, in accordance with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters have editorial freedom and can offer audiences a wide range of programme formats, including using politicians as presenters. Politicians can present current affairs programmes and they may appear in broadcast news content as an interviewee or any other type of guest, provided they are not used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter (unless there is exceptional editorial justification), and the programme otherwise complies with the Code.

Ofcom considered that five programmes raised issues warranting investigation under our due impartiality rules. These were two editions of Jacob Rees-Mogg's State of the Nation and Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one edition of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast on GB News in May and June 2023.

Ofcom found that these five programmes breached the Code for the reasons set out in full in each corresponding Decision. Politicians acted as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter in sequences which constituted news for the purposes of Section Five of the Code, without exceptional justification, and news was therefore not presented with due impartiality.

Ofcom considered that the programmes in question were both news and current affairs programmes. Programmes can feature a mix of news and non-news content and move between the two. However, if a licensee chooses to use a politician as a presenter, it must take steps to ensure they do not act as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter.

We are also publishing our reasons for deciding that a sixth programme, a separate edition of Jacob Rees-Mogg's State of the Nation, did not raise issues warranting investigation under these rules, in order to provide broadcasters with an example of what constitutes exceptional editorial justification as allowed by Rule 5.3.

The rationale for the restriction on politicians acting as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters is clear 203 politicians represent a political party or position and are therefore inherently partial on topical issues. Ofcom's Decisions also recognise the special status of broadcast news, which is afforded additional statutory protections because of its fundamental importance in a democratic society.

GB News has not previously breached Rules 5.1 or 5.3. These five programmes were broadcast in May and June 2023 and we have only had reason to open one further investigation into GB News' programming under these rules since we opened these investigations1. GB News is on notice that any repeated breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction.

 

Offsite Comment: Ofcom's patrician war on GB News

See article from spiked-online.com by Andrew Tettenborn

The Ofcom ruling is perplexing, not least as the shows in question actually tried very carefully to separate their news and current-affairs output. News bulletins were delivered by a news anchor, always deadpan, at fixed intervals and in a dedicated studio. This was then followed by free-wheeling discussions of the day's stories, led by the politician presenters.

This didn't matter, according to Ofcom. A presenter repeating the facts of the news or mentioning a breaking story was apparently enough to make him or her a newsreader. What's more, whether these politicians actually expressed biased views on air or not was deemed immaterial. As politicians, they would have been perceived as biased, and that's what counts, says Ofcom.

This ruling will have profound repercussions for broadcasting, well beyond GB News. Ofcom won't admit it, but any shows about current affairs that tend to be heavy on opinion will in practice now count as news and hence be liable to vetting for their perceived partiality.

See full article from spiked-online.com

The state has set up a databasing system to record criminal transgressions of people in Britain. But the police have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally use this system to record non criminal incidents where people have been accused of transgressing against woke censorship rules eg by criticising transgender dogma. Worse still, these transgressions are recorded merely on claims by the easily offended and are not necessarily investigated by the police to ensure voracity. Hence the claims can easily be used by people to settle scores or further grudges. Such unverified complaints turn up on official records checks when people are vetted for a job such as teaching.

The courts have criticised the police for the recording of these non-crime hate incidents (NCHI) as unlawful, and the government has also chipped in with guidelines for NCHIs to try and prevent abuse. However the police are having non of it, and are continuing on with their use more or less ignoring the court and government criticism.

The College of Policing is a taxpayer-funded quango that provides national advice to forces. In response to the court and government criticism it has been required to update its own manual for officers on how to record NCHIs, in a document called authorised professional practice (APP).

But it has been accused of deploying an "Orwellian" and "woke spin" it has decided to ignore ignore government instructions in its new draft. In the Home Office code, there are 11 scenarios provided where officers should or should not record an NCHI, 63% of which advise explicitly not to record one. However, the college's new guidance has only eight scenarios, all different to the Home Office ones, just 12.5% of which advise explicitly not to record.

Seven out of eight of these were in the college's old guidance. This was found in 2021 to be unlawful in the Court of Appeal and to disproportionately interfere with free expression in its section on how police should record incidents. It followed a High Court victory for Harry Miller, a former constable who successfully sued after Humberside Police officers visited his workplace and recorded an NCHI because of a "transphobic" limerick he shared on Twitter.

Miller, founder of Fair Cop, a group scrutinising police political correctness, told The Telegraph:

The police will not be schooled in the Home Office guidance once the APP comes out, they will be schooled in the guidance given by the College of Policing, which will mean we are exactly where we were before.

The College of Policing has taken an overtly political stance. The Home Office's examples were all very sensible and corrected the previous mistakes, but they will once again be shelved for the approved ideology of the College of Policing.

Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of 60 Tory MPs, said the College of Policing has long been a cause for public concern and called to clear out some of the bad apples that are there before they affect the whole of policing's reputation:

Policing only works by consent and the nonsense we hear from the College of Policing risks that consent, so this is another example of politically correct nonsense, perpetuating the appalling practice of arresting people for what they believe and think.

To say it is Orwellian is an understatement; I think George Orwell will be spinning in his grave.

Jeeves and Wooster books have been censored to remove prose by PG Wodehouse deemed unacceptable by the publishers, Penguin.

Original passages in the editions of the comic novels published since 2022 have been purged or reworked. These censored editions can also be identified by a disclaimer reading:

Please be aware that this book was published in the 1930s and contains language, themes and characterisations which you may find outdated.

In the present edition we have sought to edit, minimally, words that we regard as unacceptable to present-day readers.

Wodehouse has become the latest author to have their work altered, after novels by Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie were purged of words deemed at odds with modern sensitivities.

In the 1934 novel Right Ho, Jeeves , a racial term used to describe a minstrel of the old school has been removed.

In Thank You, Jeeves , whose plot hinges on the performance of a minstrel troupe, numerous racial terms have been removed or altered, both in dialogue spoken by the characters in the book, and from first-person narration in the voice of Bertie.

 

Offsite Comment: How dare they rewrite PG Wodehouse?

17th April 2023. See article from spiked-online.com by Simon Evans

No one has the right to meddle with his pristine and perfect prose.