Author: George

 

Quite a lot of pictures to kick off this article. Starting with the picture on the left which features six of Hertfordshire’s finest, arriving in two  squad cars and a police van, to arrest  Allen and Rosalind Levine for being  “disparaging” about their local school management. I have a link to Fiona Hamilton’s Times article below and will leave it to you to get into the weeds of the story but it appears that Allen and Rosalind Levine had a less than harmonious relationship with  Jackie Spriggs, the chair of governors at their child’s school. It seems that as a result the Levines were barred from the school, missing their 9 year olds Christmas play performance and the parent-teacher night. More seriously, the Levines daughter, Sasha, suffers from ‘ epilepsy and is neurodivergent and registered disabled’ and the parents were denied a  meeting with her teacher   to ensure she knew

how to administer medication in an emergency. A key element in this saga is that the Levines still don’t know what the offending communication was that triggered the  arrest. The Times asked the school, the local council and police for information about the quantity of emails and for examples of what constituted malicious communications. All three declined to give details.(The Times, 29/03/25)

However, prior to the arrest, there was a communication from Chairperson Spriggs demanding that,  “inflammatory and disparaging comments made on social media” should stop. The Levines assume that this refers to comments made on a private WhatsApp parents group and are astonished the school authorities should think that it had the power to censor free speech in this manner. The Levines supplied some examples of the messages on the WhatsApp platform (Excerpt above). In the absence of any evidence to the contrary from the authorities,  you would have to say that those who called in the police must be very thin skinned to be offended by these rather mild messages.

Hertfordshire police issued a statement saying, “The arrests were necessary to fully investigate the allegations as is routine in these types of matters. Following further investigations, officers deemed that no further action should be taken due to insufficient evidence.”  (The Times, 29/03/25) Dixon of Dock Green would have been shocked at this description of modern police procedure. Surely the correct process is to first review the complaint, then if it has merit, the police would gather supporting evidence and finally arrest the offenders. In this case, six police officers arrested the parents, in front of their children, kept them in a cell late in to the night and five weeks later decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed!! If this is how the police conduct investigations  then there should be an urgent review of their powers of arrest. Aside from this and putting aside the issue of freedom of speech and the trauma that the family experienced, WHAT A MONUMENTAL WASTE OF TIME AND RESOURCES!

This action has rightly brought some bad press  coverage for Herts police, not only for their heavy handed approach to free speech but also from angry citizens who have been constantly told that the police are under resourced and therefore unable to respond to minor offenses.  In the face of rising crime, as shown by the graph above, ordinary citizens are angry over, what they see as wasting resources on policing gossip. Typical of the comments responding to Hamilton’s article is the one from S Clarke.

6 officers attending – 5 weeks of enquiries. Nothing more than simple criticism. No threats, profanities or racism. My burglary attempt ( door damaged window broken ) no attendance of an officer at all, scenes of crime civilian attended 5 days later No forensics. No further enquiries. How did we get here ? (The Times, 29/03/25)

They see a reluctance by the police, to bend the trend downwards by tackling crime head on but preferring to send a posse to arrest two law abiding people in a parent/school dispute. Even the new Chief Constable, whilst backing the posse, thought that it could have been handled differently.

The truth is that, with the exception of credible threats of violence, the police should not be involved in deciding what is or, isn’t free speech. In this case, the test is that neither the School, the Counsel or Police could give examples of the criminally offensive speech.

Jonathan Ash-Edwards, the police and crime commissioner for Hertfordshire, condemned the arrest of the parents. “While people should be courteous and go through the proper channels when raising concerns about a public service, the public should be able to express their views without worrying they’ll get a knock at the door,” Mr Ash-Edwards said. (The Times, 29/03/25)

There is already a plethora of laws restricting speech in the UK.  The  Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence for a person to use “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviours that causes, or is likely to cause, another person harassment, alarm or distress” (CARE) The Terrorism Act of 2006; The  Communications Act of 2003; the  Human Rights Act of 1998 whilst granting universal free expression is restricted by, “the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary”. (HOPE, 14/08/20)  Quite a lot of legislation and more is to come. Aside from terrorism and criminality the issue of name calling and hurt feelings should be settled at the lowest level by arbitration under the supervision of the civil courts. The Police have no business getting involved in non violent disputes between parents and School Boards. The Civil Courts have adequate, equitable powers to resolve this sort of issue. Perhaps if the government provided a low cost civil alternative and challenged the police to improve their clear up rates, I think everyone would be better served.

 

Sources

Fiona Hamilton, 29/03/25, The Times, Police arrest parents who complained in school WhatsApp group, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/police-arrest-parents-who-complained-in-school-whatsapp-group-6r6lb2fgn

Tim Sigsworth, 01/04/25, Police chief defends force that arrested WhatsApp row parents https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/01/police-chief-defends-arrest-whatsapp-school-row-parents/

Juliana Rordorf , 14 08 20, HOPE, https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/08/14/free-speech-laws-in-the-uk-an-overview/

James Mildred, Free Speech in the UK: what does the law actually say? https://care.org.uk/cause/freedom-of-speech/free-speech-law

There is a benefit to writing a blog that no-one reads. It means that I have the luxury of revisiting issues on as many occasions that I see questionable opinions repeated. This inevitably  brings me to the Irish Times. That the IT gives me endless inspiration is not in doubt but what will disturb an imaginary reader of this blog is the number of times I have to visit the same subjects. To prove a point I was irresistibly drawn to Conor Gallagher’s article entitled, State stops opening new asylum seeker centres in certain areas due to ‘local feedback’ and ‘violent protest. (Irish Times 14/03/25) I should have been warned, as a rule of thumb  the longer the title, the less informed the story. However, motivated by my sense of duty to my fictional reader, I ploughed on. As usual, I have provided the link to his article below but  to save time I will provide a quick summary for your convenience.

The article relates to  the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) and their decision not to open new centres  for asylum seekers in certain areas. The main reason given was that it was due to “local and political feedback”, in other words people objected to immigrants being dumped in their neighbourhood. You might think that the word, dumped used above is somewhat pejorative but we have seen similar ‘feedback‘ in regard to housing that the IT has ignored in the past  and I think that  this language is justified. ( see Irish Housing Crisis  ) The piece goes on to explain that, as a result of this “feedback” and other issues,  IPAS  was experiencing difficulties housing the 18,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Ireland last year and the anticipated 15,000  expected this year. As I noted in the linked essay above, you might think that the immigration problem is smaller than you thought, with only less than 20,000 immigrants arriving each year. Hold that thought, I will come back to it.

It goes on to quote ICAS  as saying, ““Fairly uniquely in the Civil Service, the work of the division is subject to significant instances of protest, instances of arson and other violence or criminality, and targeting by anti-immigration or far-right activists,”” I note that they covered themselves  by  limiting the reference to the Civil Service and not the wider Public  Service,  lest the Guards, A&E staff,  Welfare and many other officials  point out that they have similar or, even more serious issues in their work. I also note the obligatory reference to the far right which was the subject of my essay on the Dublin Riots. There are other reasons for the lack of suitable accommodations for IPAS customers beside “far-right, anti-immigration criminality,” such as, ” sincerely held concerns about local public service capacity”. How nice of IPAS to  acknowledge that normal, non activist citizens might have concerns about the effects on the Health Service, crime, Education, housing and I will add,  cultural and  population balance in local communities.

The rubber hits the road when we start to look at the numbers quoted in the article. For example, IPAS states that 5,360 successful asylum seekers cannot find private accommodation due to high prices. Let me refer you back to the top of this essay when the IT was talking about immigration figures of 18k and 15k for 2024/25. The real reason why there is a housing crisis is that demand has increased exponentially, mainly driven by immigration! This is a consistent theme when there is any article linked to immigration.  If we look at the chart below, created by the CSO, the size of the challenge becomes clear.  Y/e April 2024 estimated immigration was 149,200. Three years ending April 2024 estimated immigration was 398,600. Let’s be charitable and assume that returning Irish immigrants, people from the UK and the EU have accommodation and will not require public funded services, That leaves the CSO termed, ‘the rest of the world’ with a three year total of 226,100 immigrants.

Whichever, figure you take it is an enormous strain on public services and local communities. For any journalist to produce any article on the impact of immigration,  without putting the numbers in context is at best incompetent.

 

Keith Starmer, of all people, has recognised that the chaotic administration of immigration policy has to be rationalised and the people have to be assured that their culture and resources are being wisely managed. He will face an uphill struggle as large sections of his party are against any audit of welfare payments and the government has been very inept at gathering data to prevent waste or fraud. A quick example is the limited visa’s  given to skilled workers to cover temporary residence in the UK. No one seems to have inserted a mechanism to ensure that when the visa expired, workers either returned home or, applied to renew the visa. It seems that the prevailing attitude is that it is just too complicated and fraught with opposition to bother about. This is surely the job of the press to represent the public against this attitude. The IT should be pushing for a full set of holistic data that can be read by the people and should energetically ask the questions that arise. Whilst writing up my latest tirade the IT obligingly published another article on the housing situation, this time entitled, “Ireland’s housing crisis: Why is there such a shortage of homes to buy and rent here?”(IT 23/03/25) No surprises here, in that there  is only discussion on the supply side of the issue, totally ignoring the data issued by the CSO reflecting a huge increase on the demand side.

It seems that we have to explain basic economics to the writers of the IT and similar communicators. If there is a TARGET to produce 50,000 houses and   we produce 60,000, then we are over target to the sum of 10,000 houses. If we produce only 30,000 houses, then we are under target 20,000 houses. THIS IS A MEASURE OF PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY. To measure the true state of the housing crisis we have to measure both sides of the supply and demand equation. Using both sides of the equation and substituting actual DEMAND for targets in the above example, we can apply Mr Micawber’s analysis where excess of demand over supply means unaffordable high prices and “misery” as an outcome.

Given the number of times I see this omission in the Times and other places  the only conclusion I can reach is that this is a deliberate policy of disinformation /misinformation. I assume that this is because those that govern and their collaborators fear that their policies would raise racial tensions but I would argue that pretending that ‘there is nothing to see here’ and suppressing any questioning will only drive opposition underground and out of the normal democratic discourse. A truly democratic approach is to be transparent, produce joined up meaningful data and try to form a contract with the Irish people that is seen to be fair to all stakeholders. This is the mission that the IT should be pursuing but I see little evidence of this in the articles related to one of the two most important issues in the last election. What is the Irish Times afraid of?

Sources

Conor Gallagher, 14/03/25, The Irish Times, State stops opening new asylum seeker centres in certain areas due to ‘local feedback’ and ‘violent protest, https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/03/14/no-new-asylum-seeker-centres-in-certain-areas-due-to-local-feedbackand-criminality/?

Charts from CSO https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2024/

Niamh Towey, 23/03/25, The Irish Times, Ireland’s housing crisis: Why is there such a shortage of homes to buy and rent here? https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/03/22/all-the-obstacles-in-front-of-us-why-is-there-such-a-shortage-of-homes-to-buy-and-rent-in-ireland/

I was interested in the latest spat between Elon Musk and Keith Starmer due to the equal amounts of heat,  light and pure miss information that it generated. I refer, of course, to the governments response to a demand for a public enquiry into the ‘Asian grooming’ scandal and Musk’s barrage of attacks on Starmer and Jess Phillips (Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls) refusal to hold one. However, we have hardly started this saga before there is a challenge to the terms commonly used to describe the abusers. I have put the term ‘Asian grooming’ in inverted commers because a report issued by the Labour Party  put the term, ” “grooming gangs” in inverted commas and suggested that using the term in relation to Muslims was racist.” (The Times 09/01/25) I  take the view that if it is an accurate description, backed up by empirical  evidence, then it is not racist. It does become racist if the term is applied to all Asian men and not to a group of criminals who share a common ethnicity.

Moving on, amidst all the flag waving and talk of  threats to democracy (Sounds familiar?) we should be able to acknowledge that two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand, we  could say that Mr Starmer might have a point when he questions Mr Musk’s motivation for all his attacks on the UK government. One suspects that Mr Musk concentrates his incredible intellect on the issue of the moment and then moves on to the next target, be it Mars, electric cars, DOGE, social media or, a socialist foreign government. I am sure that the issue of the Asian groomers shocked him and he felt that he had the means and the power to influence UK policy.  However, it would be more convincing if he had shown the same energy in the case of the 320,000 missing children that crossed the US southern border under the Biden administration. The August 2024 report, issued by the DHS Inspector General (see link below) should be well known to him and claims that they weren’t really missing because no one was really looking for them (see Note 1) demands his attention and energy  to cut through the wilful misinformation  surrounding the trafficking of children in the US. On the other  hand, reading from the progressive playbook, Mr Starmer immediately blamed everything on the fabled far right. As the Times reported  he, “accused politicians such as Kemi Badenoch, who have backed a new inquiry, of “amplifying what the far-right is saying” and “jumping on the bandwagon” to gain attention.” (The Times 09/01/25) This does a great disservice to labour MP Anne Cryer, who was shouted down when she first raised the issue; also the Times reporter Andrew Norfolk was called racist when he exposed the scandal in 2011. Labour MP Sarah Champion was accused of being Islamophobic when she spoke up for victims. These and many others were not far right politicians, Mr Starmer!

Maggie Oliver, a former detective with Manchester Police, summarised the widespread rejection of the PM’s attempt to deflect attention away from his government. “Keir’s comments about grooming gangs and the far-right clearly didn’t read the room or the mood of the country and he certainly didn’t read the mood of victims and survivors.”  (The Times 09/01/25) Maggie Oliver now runs the The Maggie Oliver Foundation which supports victims of abuse but first came to prominence exposing the failure of the authorities in Rochdale to take action against the gangs. It can be both true that Mr Musk is partly motivated by ideology, egotism and perhaps malice but it is also true that the issue that he has targeted resonates throughout the country as unfinished business that the government seeks to avoid dealing with. Continuing her response to Mr Starmers ‘extreme right wing’ comment, Maggie Oliver highlight the underlying tone of his statement as showing no real concern for the victims:

“The ones I’ve spoken to in the last few days are furious and would not accept an apology from him if he offered one.” “He clearly still views them as the problem. In the past they were viewed as the problem because what they were doing was considered ‘a lifestyle choice’, now they’re a problem because they’re challenging their inhumane treatment, but he’s accused them of being far-right extremists.” The Times 09/01/25

The term ‘lifestyle choice’ was often used when the authorities were faced with evaluating a victims complaint. Typically, she was young, probably in the system,  from a deprived background and with a drink or drug problem. It was very easy to dismiss her as having little credibility and this disinterest to pursue further investigation was widespread. In 2023 the BBC reported that both Police and Social Services failed to focus on the victims. They quoted from an earlier report from Telford which commented on the same theme:

The inquiry into the Telford abuse scandal, which published its report in 2022, found police dismissive of claims of abuse, with one saying “these girls had chosen to go with, I don’t know, ‘bad boys'”. BBC 04/04/23

The arguments for a national inquiry recognises the feeling amongst the public that previous enquiries were too narrowly drawn; not victim focussed and didn’t challenge the authorities to explain their lack of action.  Jess Phillips, recommendation that any further enquiry  should be local are hotly refuted. The feeling is that there are already too many local enquiries and a national enquiry would have the power to answer the questions from the victims as to why they were ignored for so long. As the Times leader argued:

Grooming gangs were only one element of Professor Jay’s inquiry — Rotherham garners a sole mention in her 468-page report and the gangs in Telford are not referenced. A new national inquiry is needed to explore where and how these gangs operated. It must not skirt around sensitive subjects, including ethnicity. It should not replicate mistakes of the past. (The Times leading Article 06/01/25)

We can immediately dismiss one argument against a full inquiry, that it will hold up the implementation of the 20 recommendations of the Jay report. Parliament has the power to pass legislation as it sees fit and should not be delayed by an ongoing investigation.  On a more serious note some reformers are reluctant to engage in another seven year Jay type report. I would suggest a shorter, more focussed Cass type report which uses existing reports and data from all sources. I rather like the review from the Atlantic on the efficacy of the Cass methodology,

“The Cass report is a model for the treatment of fiercely debated social issues: nuanced, empathetic, evidence-based. It has taken a political debate and returned it to the realm of provable facts.”  The Atlantic 12/04/24

What should a Cass report focus on? It should take a holistic view on all cases of child sexual abuse, nation wide. There should be a drill down on the cases in Rotherham, Oldham, Rochdale, Oxford, Telford, and other  towns but it should be looking at the response by the authorities as much as the criminality of the gangs. There needs to be a scientific approach to data, particularly crime statistics. In the past, UK police were allowed to list ‘crimes solved’ by stating that they knew who committed the crime but just couldn’t prove it. In Ireland, the Central Statistic Office refused to take Police crime figures seriously because they were so inaccurate. In the US, during the Presidential election, the FBI changed the 2023 crime Stats from a reduction of 2% to an increase of 4%. The Jay report called for the ethnicity of the offender to be recorded but there is no clarity as to how that is to be done. Similarly, the gender under which criminals are listed when the criminal has a GRC, is also not clear.  Once a base load of data has been established the victims should have an opportunity to voice their story. As Maggie Oliver said, out of the 7 year long Jay enquiry,” Just two weeks was given to the grooming gang section and only one victim was allowed to give evidence — it was a terrible missed opportunity.” The Times 09/01/25 The final section should be a review of where we are and what needs to be done.

So let’s say we have our Cass style enquiry, what do we expect to see. In the short term, we can challenge some of the misinformation exploding all over the media. For example, according to an article by Tom Calver ( The Times, 12/01/25) the figure of one million girls being abused (per Mr Musk) can be attributed to the Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, who grossed up the number of incidents over five years in Rotherham, plus an allowance for unreported crimes to get an estimated national figure and extending it over a 70-year period. “This is, as Champion later admitted, a “completely unreliable estimate.” ( The Times, 12/01/25). We must be careful in our search for accurate data that we do not lose sight of the victim’s story and unlike the Jay enquiry, time must be given to the survivors to testify to their awful experience at the hands of the gangs and the authorities. Having said that there has to be a report based on facts and an example of this is Tom Calver’s article, entitled,  How common are UK grooming gangs and who are the perpetrators? (link below) For the first time in 2023.  the Police, in response to the Jay report, have reported a national figure of 4,228 cases of “group-based” child sexual abuse and have given a breakdown by ethnicity of these crimes. Tom Calver does a good job in setting the numbers in context and explaining the definition of the various groups. However, given my previous comments on crime figures, this would be the sort of evidence that Cass focussed on in her report on Gender Identity Services for Children. I would recommend anyone interested in the facts of the Asian grooming story to read his article but I would pick a couple of stats he highlighted from the Police report. I might take issue with his chart heading in the article which is ” Tip of the iceberg – Child sexual abuse in 2023. What we might consider to be “grooming gangs” is a tiny share“. Here he is referring to the 717 cases on the first line which he interprets as being the closest to the generally understood meaning of grooming abuse. 

• Group-based, in-person child sexual exploitation 717
  Group-based, in-person child sexual abuse 4,224
  All in-person child sexual abuse 78,078
  All child sexual abuse (including images 115,489
• (The Times and The Sunday Times Source: Hydrant)

I am not sure where he gets the additional 40k+ sharing images figure but his main point is that grooming offenses are a relatively small number  compared to the total numbers. However, there is an anomaly when comparing this class of offense against the ethnicity of the general population. According to his data, the Asians represents 9%of  of the general population. Asians account for 8% of ‘All group-based’ child sex abuse, which aligns with their proportion of  the population but account for 16% of the ‘in-person’ child sexual exploitation class which identifies as the closest classification to the grooming offense. He offers no real explanation for this deviation, other than it being possibly due to difference in classification. Again, we have to be very careful about interpreting these numbers, especially as this is the first report of its kind.

In summary, the point of this essay is to attempt to calm the rhetoric and inflammatory commentary surrounding this issue and to recommend a path to logic, reason and accountability. With regard to the  threat of foreign interference in British affairs, the UK has weathered many criticisms from our cousins in America since the war. I  am reminded of the threats by President Obama to put ‘Britain at the back of the queue’ in respect of trade deals unless the British public voted against Brexit. I think this intervention, together with his view implying that the US won the war single handidly, had the opposite effect. Similarly, I think that Mr Musk’s attention will soon shift to his many other interests but I genuinely hope that he does use some of his influence to look at the trafficking of children across his southern border. However, he has ignited a debate on whether the government, both Labour and Conservative, have reneged on the fundamental duty of government to protect the weakest in society. I think that we need a mid term report on whether we failed to protect children by weakness, in fear of racial violence or, incompetence or, a mixture of both. The PM can either boldly seize this question and bring the sexual abuse of children from the darkness into the light or, be counted as an enabler and destroyer of the innocents.

Notes

Note 1) But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, a migrant advocacy group, told the BBC the figures are indicative of a bureaucratic “paperwork issue” rather than “anything nefarious”. “When you hear the phrase ‘missing’, you think that there is a child that someone is trying to find and can’t,” he said. “That’s not the case here. The government has not made any effort to find these children.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jlre7mymo

Sources

Tom Witherow, 09/01/25, The Times, Labour policy suggested ‘grooming gang’ phrase was racist, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-policy-grooming-gang-racist-islamophobia-xm7mxf9fk

DHS Inspector General https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2024-08/OIG-24-46-Aug24.pdf

Ben Ellery, 09/01/25, The Times, Grooming-gang victims furious at PM’s ‘far right bandwagon’ claim, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/grooming-gang-victims-furious-at-pms-far-right-bandwagon-claim-jktwfmr0w

Tom Symon, 04/04/23, Grooming gangs and ethnicity: What does the evidence say? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65174096

TOM CALVER , 12/01/25, The Times, How common are UK grooming gangs and who are the perpetrators? https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/grooming-gangs-ethnicities-how-many-statistics-data-dpx2bfrts

 

I have provisionally labelled this essay as ‘the Elephant in the Room’ but I am conscious that this phrase has become somewhat overused. However, it does adequately describe my reaction to an Irish Times article entitled ‘Homeless figures reach record high with 14,429 people in emergency accommodation.’ What   has piqued my interest  in the article is, what wasn’t mentioned, hence my provisional title. The figures were released by the Department of Housing and related to those 10,028 adults and 4401 children in emergency accommodation in the week of July 22nd to 28th. You might be forgiven for thinking that the homeless figure was smaller than you had been led to believe. The article stated that this involved 2,086 families which could be easily managed within the Taoiseach’s promise of 250,000 houses over  5 years. (The Independent 07/04/24) Well not quite, as there are 6,573 single adults included in the numbers, it doesn’t give a breakdown by sex which would have been interesting. Let us assume that this means that we have to add the single adult number to the number of families to get the number of housing units required to solve the housing crisis. Well again not quite, as the numbers exclude the following:

None of this data includes homeless people who are in domestic refuges, those in direct provision centres who have leave to remain in the State, those who are sleeping rough, or the 2,539 male asylum seekers awaiting offers of accommodation. Irish Times 30/08/24

There doesn’t seem to be a holistic set of statistics for the homeless, which is surprising given the number of plans published by various parties to solve the problem. If we take the definition of homeless to mean all those who have no permanent accommodation, then we must add back those who have been excluded from the Department of Housing report. For example, as shown in fig 1 opposite, there are 31,563 people in direct provision managed by the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS). If we take the most recent weekly breakdown of those in direct provision (fig 2) as fairly representative, we can see that the housing requirement is not far short of the 30k figure in that  all the groups shown in fig 2 will require separate housing units, with the exception  of the children. I fully understand that this is a rough and ready

estimate but I don’t see any attempt by the IT to question the Department of Housings  definition of homelessness.  Why go down this particular rabbit hole? It is just to demonstrate that we need to question every statement made by government and media. There may be a reasonable explanation as to why homelessness is defined by one government department differently from the man or woman in the street. It is the job of the media to question and explain why that may be so.

The reaction to the report was predictable and the usual suspects  were canvassed. Focus Ireland’s chief executive Pat Dennigan said ‘that family homelessness was continuing to rise mainly because families were finding it’ “harder than ever to secure a home and move out of homelessness”. ‘Labour leader Ivana Bacik described as “utterly heartbreaking” that thousands of children were “heading back to school” from emergency shelter.’ Catherine Kenny, chief executive of Dublin Simon, said as winter approached “the urgency of addressing the homeless crisis becomes even more pressing”. She continued: “An exponential increase in the development of new social housing … must be at the forefront of any Budget discussions.” (Irish Times 30/08/24) I am trying not to be disparaging about the above commentators but when I say the usual suspects they do tend to belong to a particular mindset who believe the only solution is government intervention and whose policy is mainly emotionally driven. However, there are those who I don’t mind disparaging and right on time we have the solution from Sinn Fein. They has seen the Taoiseach’s bid of 250k houses and have raised it to 300k with no impact on the exchequer. I will leave any analyse of their bid to those of us who believe that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Also, for those of us  who remember the Celtic Tiger housing boom and the never ending saga of the Children’s Hospital, I am more than a bit sceptical about the governments ability to bring such a large project to fruition, in a timely, cost effective and efficient manner. What is the common theme from most of the above commentators is that we must increase supply by government subsidy, in one form or another. The Taoiseach says we need 250,000 units, Sinn Fein says 300,000, why not 500,000? These are just numbers thrown into the wind. Do we have the resources to do this and where are all these houses going to be built? We all remember the ‘ghost towns’ of the Celtic Tiger years. What we are not hearing is anything resembling a coherent plan.

And then we come to the Elephant in the room. When considering the shortage of any commodity we need to look at both sides of the supply and demand equation. John Ring, director of research at Savills, summarised the situation, as follows:

“While it is true that many countries across the world are facing housing shortages, it is important to recognise that the severity of Ireland’s is on a different level to others … Ireland has unique drivers – a delayed natural population boom, high migration due to strong economic growth, and structural legacy issues resulting from the Celtic Tiger crash – that explain why Ireland has the unenviable position having the worst supply-to-population growth [ratio] of the countries analysed.” (Irish Times, 15/08/24)

He might also have added government inactivity to the causes. If we look at the

year ended April 2024 population estimates produced by the CSO (fig 3)  we immediately see one of the most important elements fuelling the housing crises,  mentioned by John Ring. The number we should look at is the top line which shows that there was an estimated 141k immigrants in the 12 months ending in April 2023 and 149k in 12 months ending April 2024. Now before anyone points out that we should subtract the emigration number to establish the net immigration figure, I would remind them that , in this instance, we  are looking at housing demand and not population growth. In the CSO graph Fig 4: Immigration Classified by Broad Citizenship Group, 2018 – 2024, two things become obvious. The first is the exponential growth in immigration from 2021 and the second is the dominance of the ‘Rest of the World’ number. In the last two years that number was 86.8k for 2024 and 81.1K for 2023 but there was an outward flow, in this class, of 21.5k in 2024 and 14.4k in 2023 which can be offset.(CSO 27/08/24)  The impact on housing demand of the other groups is fairly stable.

If we focus on the largest variable on the demand side of the equation we can also accept that not all of the net ‘Rest of the World’ numbers will require individual housing units. (86.6+81.1-21.5-14.4=132k) If we make another assumption and apply the proportions of single v family numbers in IPAS care  in fig 5 to the two year net figure of the ‘Rest of the World’ immigration, we will get some idea of the real demand for housing. If we can extrapolate from fig 5 it would mean that single males make up 57.4k of the ‘Rest of the World’ total, single woman 16.9k and the remaining 57.7k is representing couples and families. If we want to gestimate how many units that makes, we can use the proportions in fig 2 to hazard a guess to breakdown the last category. Thus, if we take 3% of the family class and divide by 2, we get an approximation of the single parent number housing units. ( 3% x 57.7 /2= 0.87 units). If we then take the remaining number, assume 4 people per family (2022 Census records 1.34 children per family) we can have a view on what the ‘Rest of the World’ housing demand is. (3% x 57.7,/4 = 14k).

So, what is the final gestimate of housing for the biggest variable in the immigration numbers? Rest of the World net immigration 132k.  Demand for accommodation based on that number, Single males 57.4k + single females 16.9k + single parents 0.9k + families 14k = 89.2k/2 = 44.6k units per year

I fully recognise that these are numbers held together by string and Sellotape; from disparate sources that don’t always line up and based on assumptions that are somewhat arbitrary. However, I couldn’t find a similar official breakdown, either from government sources or the media. I am sure that there is such a breakdown but to the ordinary citizen it is difficult to find. Up until 2021 Ireland had a housing problem, within three years it has become a housing crisis and the main reason for the change is immigration. To clarify, this essay is not about immigration, per se but about the absence of any honest discussion about the impact on the people and the plans to deal with what are foreseeable challenges. And that is the most frustrating part. The housing crisis is just one manifestation of this sudden change that is obvious to anyone with their wits about them.  However the government and the media are operating under the rules of a form of omerta. Any discussion on housing should look at all the variables and instead of trying to label  any contrary opinion as disinformation, should publish their own plans for the future and the data supporting them. As a random example, I read an article from the Irish Times editorial entitled, The Irish Times view on the housing crisis: further threats facing into 2023. Apparently, the only driver was the slowdown in building, nothing on the demand side changed it seems. In contrast, across the Atlantic/ Megan Specia sums up the current situation in an article entitled, ‘The Social Contract Has Been Completely Ruptured’: Ireland’s Housing Crisis’ (New York Times 15/01/24) I have discussed this issue in another essay (Dublin Riots  ) and silence on one of the main  reasons for the housing crisis is another manifestation of an increasing gulf between the citizens and government in Ireland. Finally, I was tempted to go with the New York Times heading but have stayed with the Elephant in the Room. It may be a bit  hackneyed but it fits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

Kitty Holland, 30/08/24, Irish Times, Homeless figures reach record high with 14,429 people in emergency accommodation, https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2024/08/30/homeless-figures-reach-record-high-with-14429-people-in-emergency-accommodation/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Homeless figures reach record high with 14%2C429 people in emergency accommodation&utm_campaign=evening_update_digest

Ian Curran Jack Horgan-Jones, 18/08/24, Irish Times, Ireland’s housing crisis ‘on a different level’ with population growing at nearly four people for every new home built, https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2024/08/15/housing-irelands-population-is-growing-at-nearly-four-people-for-every-new-home-built/

CSO, 27/08/24, Population and Migration Estimates, April 2024, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2024/keyfindings/

I was going to introduce a new culture page and comment on my recent attendance  at two opera’s and one play. However, the Dems had a bad week and I couldn’t resist commenting on the rare sight of the Democratic party in complete disarray. It started, of course, with the Presidential debate and the picture, opposite, tells the whole story. What does surprise me is the impact it had on the progressives. Like most sane people I thought that everyone knew that the President was suffering a decline and as a result, a very low bar was set for his performance. Normally, if he managed to stay upright for 90 minutes, the press would laud whatever he managed to remember from his week long training session, declare him victorious and we could all move on. That didn’t happen! I think part of the reason why the resulting implosion was so dramatic was that the legacy press just couldn’t defend or miss or diss inform what was in front of peoples eyes.

I will follow up on the reverberations from this disaster later but a slew of Supreme Court decisions added to the progressives’ misery. Of the nineteen, end of term, decisions published, three stand out as being immediately relevant for the election in November.

1. Fischer v. United States – This case revolves around the interpretation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 section 15.12.C2. This act was a response to the destruction of evidence in the Enron case and made it an offense if a person, “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.” Scotus 603 US 2024. Jan 6 prosecutors, used this act, in conjunction with others, to charge protesters with obstructing official proceedings but the Supreme Court found that the section under which they were charged was limited by the listed destruction of physical evidence and not prevention of  the proceedings. This complicates Jack Smiths case against Donald Trump and as an example of the asymmetric application of the law, it should have have been used against Hillary Clinton,  who destroyed evidence that was the subject of an investigation. Not surprisingly, in that case the DOJ declined to press charges.

2. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and Relentless Inc. v. Dept. of Commerce.

These were two cases brought by fishermen against a government agency who forced the fishermen to pay for an onboard inspector. The issue before the court was that there was no basis in statute or any other regulation that gave the agency the power to do this. The Court decided to overturn, what was known as the Chevron deference, where there was undue weight given to government agencies  when expert opinion was needed to decide on  ambiguous law. In the cases before it, SCOTUS ruled that Congress had not given these wide powers to the government and therefore, the actions were ultra virus.

3. Trump v. United States. This is the decision that has created most noise from the Dems. Talk of Trump sending Seal Teams to assassinate some political enemy abound. The editorial from the Financial Times, of all papers, gives us a flavour of the end of democracy mantra so loved by the Dems. The editorial is entitled, The Supreme Court has undermined US democracy, and in its final paragraph grandly talks in terms of the American revolution helping to spur the world away from ‘tyranny and towards democracy and accountability. But look around you! We have truly witnessed a revelation when we saw the debate and the frailty of the President. This had been an open secret to those on the right but to those who depended on the legacy press it was really shocking. At every turn government spokes persons, journalists and celebrities talked about how sharp he was, behind closed doors until the lie was exposed. Also, When you talk of the threat to democracy you surely can’t be talking about the Biden administration attempt to prevent his political opponent from being on the ballot, SCOTUS Donald Trump v. Norma Anderson.

Think about it. Who has weaponised and used state agencies to promote autocratic rule against it’s opponents, from pushing Russiagate to hiding Hunter’s laptop from the electorate. Who commands the sort of power that includes the FBI and intelligence agencies to the so called free press. Do we really believe Donald Trump has that power? The FT regrets that the three remaining cases will probably not be heard before the election. Hardly the fault of SCOTUS or Trump, as they could had been heard any time in the last couple of years. As the FT  implies the real planned timing was to land these cases to coincide with the Republican primaries and November elections. Speaking of lawfare, the FT shows no interest in putting the SCOTUS decision in context. It did not happen in a vacuum but in response to the attempt to eliminate a political opponent by very undemocratic means. In an article explaining why this provision was needed now, the Washington Examiner made the following comment.

“The difference now is that the Democratic Party has decided Republicans must be prevented at any cost from winning presidential elections and that abusing the criminal justice system and lying about the current president’s mental health are all justified toward that political end. The Supreme Court put a brake on that slide Tuesday and we applaud it.” Washington Examiner, 02/07/24

The FT only had to do a little research to see that the four main cases against Trump were politically motivated. For example, if we look at the prosecutors, both Bragg and Fani Willis were elected on a ‘Get Trump’ ticket. Nothing partisan about that then. Jack Smiths appointment has been challenged and his claimed independence from the Biden DOJ is looking very suspect. But hasn’t Trump been found guilty in NY? The short answer is that he could only have been found guilty in NY or DC, where Trump derangement syndrome is endemic. Even the Justice Department didn’t take the case, possibly because it had failed in a similar case against the Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. It just got worse when the only witness that could prove conspiracy was a disbarred lawyer, a felon who had serially lied and contradicted his own evidence, who hated Trump and even admitted stealing from him. Michael Cohen is a real piece of debris. I would challenge the FT to take even a cursory glance at this case and tell me that it wasn’t politically motivated with the objective of taking out the Republicans Presidential candidate.

When Joe Biden first stood for President he gave one of his reasons for standing as his opposition to Trumps support for racism, supposedly expressed in his 2017 Charlottesville speech. Biden has repeated the ‘Very Fine People’ quote on many occasions, the most recent being the Presidential debate.  The problem is that Snopes, hardly a conservative organisation , has fact checked it and found that, ‘No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People’. Given the number of times Biden used the quote we can only assume that this was deliberate miss information, However, the interesting thing is that it only appears to have been fact checked very recently. This means that the press had looked the other way, as it did with Bidens decline and so many other things, for around seven years and only now seems to have applied some basic journalism to current events. The challenge for the FT is to prove that it isn’t part of the media who covered up Bidens incapacity. The media who supported the whole Russia gate lie, who hid the Hunter laptop from the electorate, who hasn’t reported on the weaponisation of the Federal agencies. Who looks away when Mayorkus says that the border is secure and says that Trump is the enemy of democracy, whilst supporting efforts to prevent him standing in an election.

It is also evidenced by the FT editorial that ignored the context of the Supreme Court decision and without irony, projects all the undemocratic attempts by the Dems to subvert democracy, on to Trump claiming that he is the threat to democracy. 

So, we have seen the chaos caused by one event which showed the extent of the Biden administrations contempt for the truth and the media’s compliance by reporting the party line. The FT has to make a decision as to whether they are part of that group or, whether they will go the extra mile to give a balanced view of the news. The editorial referred to above was not balanced or, well researched but a rather lazy and biased fabrication. However, I will agree with their sub title to the editorial which read:

We have now observed the extent to which an occupant of the Whitehouse can erode democratic norms. FT 03/07/24

When will the FT realise that the above is a perfect description of the present administration and be brave enough to report the truth.

 

Sources

Editorial, The Financial Times, 03/07/24, The Supreme Court has undermined US democracy

Washington Examiner, 02/07/24, Supreme Court strikes proper balance on presidential immunity, washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3065980/supreme-court-strikes-proper-balance-on-presidential-immunity/

Jonathan Turley, 24/03/24, Why Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump is falling apart, New York Post, https://nypost.com/2023/03/23/why-braggs-case-against-trump-is-falling-apart/

I was going to do a follow up to my essay on the the proposed amendments to the Irish Constitution ( see Referendum ) but the Scots launched their Hate Speech Act on April Fools day and I couldn’t resist commenting on it. ( Hate Speech ) I had put the Referendum on the back burner until an article in the Irish Times caught my eye. Before we examine it, I would like to say that the quality of investigative journalism has fallen but in equal part, the ability of people to asses the truthfulness of the information supplied has also deteriorated. You used to accept that the Guardian and the Telegraph were reporting from different ends of the political spectrum but the basic facts were there and usually the opposite view was given some space to give a sense of balance. Now there is a definite partisan bias to mainstream news coverage. On the other hand, readers are far less inclined to question what and how news is reported.  Well let’s see how well the IT matches up to that low  bar.

The story concerns the thirty ninth and fortieth Amendment to the Constitution and one of the most contentious  issues was the attempt to redefine the family by adding the term ‘durable relationships’ to Article 41.1.1. Opponents to the Amendment immediately pointed out that this phrase had no legal meaning in this context. Indeed, the leading opponent of the referendum, former Justice Minister  Michael McDowell, raised the potential problems with taxation, succession and family law. As reported by the I.T, “Campaigners for No warned before the family vote of “long-term consequences” for tax law. But when the Government was asked whether it had examined the tax implications of the proposed amendment, it stated in unambiguous terms that there would be no tax impact.” (IT 21/05/24) Unfortunately for the government, this position was not true. As a result of a freedom of information (FOI) request documents relating to this question were released by the Revenue, and told a different story.

Revenue officials warned of potential tax law changes arising from the family referendum before Ministers claimed the proposal had no tax implications, according to newly-released files that raise fresh questions about the Government campaign. (IrishTimes, 21/05/24)

It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this. The government has run for cover and used the Attorney General as a shield against the accusations of miss or diss information to push through an unpopular change to the Constitution. This is as if the prosecution in a murder trial hid exculpatory evidence from the defence lawyers. The government were put on notice that the Department that administered the tax regime had serious doubts about the wording to be used in the amendments. An honest government would have disclosed the Revenue’s reservation and the A.G.’s review and let it be part of the public debate. There is no other way of putting this, the government hid the revenue’s warning and repeatedly lied to the public on the tax question.

What else can we take  from the I.T. article. There are two bits of information that I think are worth looking at. The first is, who filed the FOI request? It is not clear, from the article, whether it was  the I.T.  or publications like Gript but credit to both of them for following up on this story  The second question is, which Ministers lied to the public? You wouldn’t know from the IT article, which means I have to deduct some points gained for pursuing the story. They talk about the government and it’s spokesmen but no names. We are too used to tiredly accepting low standards from high officials but just like naughty children, if there are no consequences for bad behaviour, then it becomes the norm. The view of the IT seems to be, ‘not  much to see here’ and described the lie as a “constructive ambiguity”.  (IT 22/05/24) That’s a new one on me and I am sure that it took a lot of resources from the IT staff to come up with that one. They further stated that, although the government was hiding behind the A.G. one could “imply” that this meant that they had, at least, considered  the Revenues opinion, even though their conclusion was wrong. Hold on though, it just gets even more distant from reality as the editorial continued,

The trouble is that such nuances get lost in the noise. Instead, the impression that is left is one of a government misleading the electorate. That, in the current climate, can further erode public trust. Governments would do well to bear this in mind in advance of future referendums. (IT 22/05/24)

We seem to forget that the government and all it’s people work  for the Irish citizens. The government has no money or assets of it’s own but disperses money taken from those citizens. We seem to have morphed into a society run by a small elite of cultural marxists and their fellow travellers who exist in a bubble totally out of touch with the people that ultimately employ them. This is why the IT  didn’t identify those who lied but talked in terms of ‘nuances’ and the rather ridiculous ‘constructive ambiguity’. This, in part, explains the outcome of the referendum, the very short version being that Leo and Co. got hammered and humiliated and he resigned! There was another issue related to the proposed change of definition of the family in the constitution and that relates to immigration. As reported by Gary Kavanagh, a  senior official in the Department of Justice said “The State has been able to maintain an immigration system so far precisely because Article 41 is applied to a small, tightly-defined group of people. The State will not be able to regulate immigration if this protection is applied any more widely.” (Gript, 21/05/24) Was it a ‘constructive ambiguity’ that prevented this issue surfacing during the debate on the referendum?

The IT is correct when it says that there is a loss of public trust in government institutions and also in those that support them. There is no ‘noise‘  that deafened people to an explanation of the governments action. There is no ‘impression‘ that the  government mislead the electorate as the IT put it. There is no doubt that the government lied  but they lied with the expectation that there would be no consequences. I will leave it to Senator Sharon Keogan to sum up.

“Today’s disclosure, in addition to the Interdepartmental Minutes and the leaks by Gript and The Ditch earlier this year, make it an inescapable fact that this government misled the Irish public on the Constitutional referendums…..“This should be a national scandal – if this were a different period of time in which we didn’t have so many journalists seeking Special Advisor roles. The legacy media would be asking government ministers, ‘when are you going to resign?’(Gript, 21/05/24)

 

Sources

Arthur Beesley, 21/05/24, The Irish Times, Revenue officials wthe sarned privately that family referendum could force tax changes

Editorial, 22/05/24, The Irish Times, The Irish Times view on referendum information: a potential erosion of trust

Maria Maynes, 21/05/24, Gript, SENATOR: REVENUE OFFICIALS’ WARNING THAT FAMILY REFERENDUM COULD FORCE TAX CHANGES ‘SHOULD BE NATIONAL SCANDAL’

Two proposed amendments, which voters considered on Friday, were intended to reflect the more secular, liberal values of the nation’s modern era.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2024/03/16/metropolitan-bubble-referendum-fallout-for-irish-politics-and-wider-society/?

 

I had intended to follow up my last essay on the two proposed amendments to the Irish Constitution but ever reliable Scotland  managed to gazump that project by doing something even more stupid that I just couldn’t ignore. I probably will do something on the amendments story but spoiler alert, the very short version is that Leo and Co. got hammered and humiliated and he resigned. (Constitutional Amendments ) So what did the Scots do that elbowed Leo and Co from the front page? Well the clue is in the title of this essay. They finally enacted the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. You note that it was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2021 but only enacted in April 2024. This was due to widespread opposition to it, not least of which came from the Scottish Police who were charged with, well, policing it. The delay is even more remarkable when you realise that most of it’s most objectionable provisions were already built in to the Public Order Act of 1986 which it consolidates. I have already discussed the utter ineptitude of the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) leadership in an essay concerning the housing of sex offenders and violent criminals in women’s prisons. (Safe Spaces) Both Nicola Sturgeon and her successor, First Minister Humza Yousaf, have their fingerprints all over this latest measure, which should fill no one with confidence.

By the way, just a sample of the amount of thought put in to this legislation is that complainants can visit any of 400 ‘third party reporting centres’ to process their claims. Pictured opposite are the owners of one such office, who operate a sex shop but you could also make your claim at a mushroom farm and a caravan park. As the police have no opportunity to pre vet these complaints and as most are anonymous it isn’t difficult to see where this is going.

So what are the new provisions of the 2021 Act? In summary, they incorporate the basic structure of the 1986 anti racist Public Order Act but expand it in two ways. Firstly the protected class is expanded from race to include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity. It also includes an enhanced ‘stirring up provision’ which was first introduced in the 1986 Act. As an aside, the term ‘stirring up’ is borrowed from the name commonly given to the collet for the twenty fifth Sunday after Trinity or, the day people made their Christmas puddings. More importantly, the first thing to note is that there is no welcome for women in the new protected classes.

Quite why women were omitted is not clear but the First Minister has promised a special Act, in the future, all to themselves. I would hazard a guess that the inclusion of transgenderism in the new act gave Yousaf a problem. If he included women as a separate category as well as transgenderism,  then where does a man claiming to be a woman sit at the table of the new protected classes? If a woman is protected under the Act does that mean that terms like TERF and transphobe can be classed as hate speech against them? I could imagine that JKR could come up with a far spicier collection of hate speech used against her but if she were to take action under the Act, will the police be the ones to arbitrate on the question of, what is a woman?

Before going into the detail of how this is going to be administered I would like to say that I am  concerned about the widespread number of people represented by the protected classes. I understand how this comes about, the authorities want to demonstrate how seriously they take crimes against minorities. The problem comes when nearly everyone is included, as in this case. If we add women to the listed group mentioned under the Act, I leave it to you to work out who has been left out.

As mentioned above, one of the main groups to oppose the Bill were the Police. There are three main areas of concern when looking at the involvement of the police in enforcing the Hate Speech provisions. The first is the contract between the public and the police on which all community policing relies. People understand the trade off between giving the Police powers, to maintain public safety, as long as they are exercising it in a fair and effective way. However, rank and file of the Scottish Police Federation are unhappy to be put in the front line of managing contentious social and political issues. such as this one.

General secretary [of the Scottish Police Federation] Calum Steele said: “Police officers are all too aware that there are individuals in society who believe that to feel insulted or offended is a police matter……The bill would move even further from policing and criminalising of deeds and acts to the potential policing of what people think or feel, as well as the criminalisation of what is said in private.” BBC Scotland, 28/07/24

The second issue is the practicality of the police administrating the Act. Whilst senior management promise that every complaint will be investigated The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, told MSPs that there was “enough anger and hateful bile online to occupy every police officer in Scotland”. (The Times, 30/03/24) Indeed at a time when the Police have said that they don’t have the resources to investigate low level crime, the consumption of person hours to review  anonymous hate speech complaints is not at all popular with the public (See comment below). Police Scotland announced that they received 7,152 complaints in the first week of operating the Act. Obviously, this high number reflects the novelty of opportunist malcontents making  anonymous accusations against those who don’t share their world view. The Guardian, always with it’s finger on the news pulse, reported that Police spammed with complaints by neo-Nazis under new Scottish hate crime law. It’s those neo-Nazis again, what would the legacy press do without them? How the Guardian pierced the veil of anonymity, which the police said was used in nearly every case, and how they accounted for the complaints made against both  JKR and Humza Yousaf is a mystery. However, the more important question is, do we really believe that Police Scotland thoroughly reviewed 7,152 reports in a week? If you believe a Police spokesman who said, “This significant demand continues to be managed within our contact centres and so far the impact on frontline policing, ….. has been minimal.”  then it must be true. (Mail Online 11/04/24) However, if common sense and past history is a guide, then we should look to other sources such as a report issued by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) who says that staffing levels for frontline policing is stretched and only extensive use of overtime covers the gap. This will become important when we look at the number of cases listed as a non-crime hate incident.

The third problem with how the Act will be administered, follows on from the first two. We have seen the reluctance of the rank and file police to get involved in highly charged social and political issues. We have also seen from front line police that they are  unable to investigate certain crimes due to lack of resources. Chief Inspector of Constabulary Craig Naylor said: ‘Many of those frontline officers and staff we spoke to indicated they felt that current staffing levels in their areas left them feeling vulnerable and, at times, unsafe.‘ (Mail Online 11/04/24) In both cases the police management have taken the  opposite view. As we have seen, the police spokesman, quoted above  talked about there being minimal effect from the 7k+ Hate Speech complaints received in the first week. In summary, the senior management of Police Scotland see no problem with policing hate speech whilst those who have to interact with the public, the rank and file, fear the loss of public confidence as they drift further away from their traditional role of catching criminals. The public have a right to be uneasy about assurances from senior bureaucrats that we can sleep safely while the experts are on the job. It was the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) advised by the Scottish Trans Alliance, who designed the gender identity and gender reassignment policy to be implemented in Scottish Prisons. As JKR pointed out in her tweet this enabled Adam Graham (opposite) to be remanded in a women’s prison before public opinion forced a reversal. (see my essay The Gender Recognition Reform Bill). In the nature of state adopted ideology, it  is no surprise that this situation had occurred before, this time in neighbouring England  in the case of Stephen Terence Wood.

Mr Wood, like Mr Graham was convicted of double rape and also like Mr Graham then claimed that he  was a woman. He adopted the name of Karen White (see my essay Am I one of the Last Feminist Standing?)  For those who believe that the state is apolitical and only has the  interests of the public at heart, they  should study these cases and then decide whether any state authority can be trusted to perform their duties faithfully,  without rigorous public scrutiny. .  To summarise, in both cases  transgender ideology was baked in to the system; policy decisions were hidden from public view and there was no real consequences for those who failed their charges. I will leave this point with the pathetic apology made by the English Minister of Justice for exposing women prisoners to the mercy of Mr Wood.  The Ministry of Justice has apologised for moving her to the women’s prison, saying that her previous offending history had not been taken into account. (The Guardian 11/10/18) 

The proponents of the Act had a rather strange, contradictory and convoluted response to the various criticisms levied at them. Angela Constance, the Justice Secretary, said the 240 hate crimes recorded in the first week proved why the act was needed. (Daily Record 10/04/24) Does she understand that her figure of 240 represents approx 3% of the complaints made? Does she also understand that this only means that the Police consider that there may be a case to answer in these 240 instances? In other words, unlike a crime of violence, they are not ‘hate crimes’ until they have been proved to be so in a Court of Law. Humza Yousaf, on the other hand, tried to show that, ‘there is nothing to see here guv’ by saying that free speechers and JKR had nothing to fear since 240 ‘hate crimes’ was such a small, insignificant number that it proved how effective the police had been in policing the ‘hate speech’ complaints. The description of Mr Yousaf as being someone who pulls the pin out of a grenade and then throws the pin away, comes to mind. Mr Yousaf further defended his bill in a radio interview, saying: “I’ve asked this question of many people who’ve opposed the act. Can they give me an example of behaviour that is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred that they don’t think should be prosecuted? And no answer comes.” The Times 06/04/24  I think that this is something of a circular argument and goes to the heart of the matter. Ask any 10 people to give an example of behaviour that is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred and you will get 10 different answers. Katie Neeves, for example, was disappointed that the Police refused to take up JKR.s challenge to the Act. Ms Neeves was mentioned in JKR’s series of tweets and felt that “JK Rowling is a bully and this act was designed to stop bullying” and because her name was mentioned alongside the likes of Adam Graham (See above) that this was, “….inciting hatred and it resulted in me receiving thousands of messages of hate.” (BBC News 02/04/24) Just for information, Ms Neeves is a trans woman who is the UK’s UN Woman’s delegate. We seem to have two opposing views on one series of tweets and it is no surprise that it is on the trans issue. Surely the Minister of Community Safety can give us a definitive ruling on what is a hate crime and what isn’t?

If the public appear bewildered, so do Scottish government ministers. Siobhian Brown, the minister for community safety, was unable to explain on BBC Radio Scotland whether “misgendering” a person counts as a criminal act. This, she said, would be for the police to determine. The Times 06/04/24

There is another aspect to this legislation that the Scottish public are only now becoming aware of and that is the strangely named non-crime hate incident. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act: factsheet published on 16/04/24, had very little to say about this feature of hate speech policing, other than to say that these incidents had been recorded since 2004 and were kept purely for statistical purposes. The first problem is to try to understand what this odd animal is. In simple terms it is a hate speech complaint that the police decline to prosecute. We need to step into the weeds a bit here and understand that we are not recording an event, like a violent death, for example. We are trying to determine the mindset of someone who has said or, written something, someone has taken offense to. So who decides that? The coroner records a violent death and determines it’s cause and it is recorded in the crime statistics as such. However, a hate speech crime can not be described as a crime until the mindset of the accused, has been proved by the police to be threatening or abusive to someone, or it has to cause them fear or alarm. Siobhian Brown, the minister for community safety, seems to be happy  to leave this to the police but just before the activation of the Act the police were asked ,what was the criteria for recording a non-crime hate incident (NCHI)? The police referred to the current national guidelines, which read as follows:

“For recording purposes, the perception of the victim or any other person is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident or in recognising the malice element of a crime.” …….”The perception of the victim should always be explored, however they do not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief and police officers or staff members should not directly challenge this perception.” The Herald 29/04/24

This means that I could, anonymously, complain about JKR’s tweets and even though the police avoided confronting her in court, because I say that I am offended, the complaint will be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. No proof required, no evidence, no investigation just anonymous me, saying that I am offended! What sort of crime statistic does the Scottish government think they have here? This is year one accountancy stuff. Under pressure, Alan Speirs, Deputy Chief Constable for Professionalism, Strategy and Engagement (what splendid titles they have) said that NCHI’s will be recorded, “where it is necessary and proportionate to do so”  and where it, “meets a particular policing purpose.”  (The Herald 29/04/24) I wonder if Mr Speirs understands what that means? Does it mean that the guidelines have been changed? If so, what are the new rules? We know that there are going to be new rules because of the Miller v College of Policing ruling in England and Wales. We have already discussed the highly subjective and prejudicial way these NHCI reports are recorded as hate crimes, it now seems that these reports may be available to third parties who have requested an enhanced check from Disclosure Scotland. Such checks would be made where someone is seeking employment with children, for example.

Disclosure Scotland confirmed that enhanced checks “may include reference to non-conviction matters” such as non-crime hate incidents while The Scotsman understands information within hate incidents would fall under other relevant information in enhanced checks handed over by Police Scotland. (The Scotsman 28/04/24)

Is it possible that somewhere close to Scotland had a similar system that had been tested in the Courts? As Police Scotland well knew before the implementation of the 2021 Act the Appeals Court in England and Wales, had handed down a ruling stating that the recording of a NCHI which was available to third parties, violated the complainants right to free speech. It also, referred to the ECHR concept of ‘chilling’ free speech where such a record may cause a person to be discouraged from engaging in debate due to fear of prosecution. Once again we have seen chaos and confusion whenever a question is raised concerning this Act. Siobhian Brown, the minister for community safety, refers the matter to the police who say that they will act “proportionally”, whatever that means. However, Siobhian would be less confident in the police were she to look across the border and see what happened to a 14year old, autistic boy who had a non crime hate incident, recorded against him in England. Can she guarantee that a similarly, politicised, under resourced and overstretched Police Scotland will not make the same mistake?

And we could go on. As you peel away each layer of this proverbial onion it reveals yet another problem with this legislation. And here is the problem. The Hate Speech Act and the failed Named Persons, Gender Recognition and Behaviour at football proposals were all the products of a small cabal of not very bright but loud progressive elites. They believe that all aspects of society can be policed by a benevolent state. These are the people that Calum Steele (above) talked about when he said, “Police officers are all too aware that there are individuals in society who believe that to feel insulted or offended is a police matter.” These are the people of Davos or, Brussels who preach racism, agism, disability-ism, religion-ism, sexual orientation-ism, and transgender identity-ism. These are the people who have the levers of power. who inflict DEI and ESG on everyone else. These are the Leo Varadkars of this world, who amidst a housing, immigration and public services crisis chose to tinker with the Constitution with Amendments that no one wanted. These include the likes of John Kerry and his associates who clog up the Airport at Davos with their private jets and claim that they are ‘too important’ to travel coach, with the rest of us. We can add Dr Fauci, who during covid, ignored all other opinions claiming that he ‘represented science’. Closer to home we have the appalling arrogance and technical incompetence of the expert class at the British Post Office as can be seen on the ITV program, The Post Office v Mr Bates. Finally, we come to the terrible trio of SNP leaders, Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf who aptly demonstrate the failure of corrupt progressive policies. From unrealistic Green  party climate programs to unpopular DEI (Divisiveness, Exclusion and Indoctrination: quote Marty Kotis) government social engineering projects. In the end this Act will fail because those that dreamed it up had no concept on how the real world works. They are constantly surprised by the reaction of the ‘deplorables’ to their ill thought out and authoritarian policies of which the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 is a perfect example.

 

 

Comments

John Paterson
14th March 1:24 pm

“Recent statistics show that 5,738 charges of hate crime were reported in Scotland in 2022-23.” “Minister for Victims & Community Safety Siobhian Brown said: For those impacted by hatred and prejudice, the results can be traumatic and life changing.” There were 103,393 crimes of dishonesty (including theft, shoplifting, housebreaking and fraud) in Scotland in the same period.
A lot of these will now no longer be investigated.
Is it not traumatic and life changing for some of those who impacted by these crimes? The Herald 01/04/24

 

 

Sources

Alex Massie and Sian Bradley, 06/04/24, The Times, How Scotland made a mess of its hate crime law — in a week of chaos

Chris McCall, 10/04/24, Daily Record, Police Scotland swamped with more than 7,000 complaints in first week of new hate crime laws

Xander Elliards, 10/04/24, The National, Police Scotland publish Hate Crime Act data,

Jody Harrison, 01/04/24, The Herald. Explained: What are Scotland’s new Hate Crime Laws?

Leo Sands, 10/04/24, Washington Post,  Scotland’s hate speech law ignites culture war far outside its border

28/07/24, BBC Scotland, New Scottish hate crime laws ‘could devastate legitimacy of police’

Mike Wade, 30/03/24, The Times, ‘You can’t police the world’: barrister takes on ‘insane’ hate crime law

Jon Brady, 11/04/24, Mail Online, Is that it? Just four per cent of hate complaints in Scotland made under Humza Yousaf’s controversial new law the week it came into force are being treated as crimes – with only EIGHT cases related to trans issues

Andrew Learmonth, 29/04/24, The Herald, Hate Crime: Questions over Police Scotland’s recording of hate crimes

David Bol, 28/03/24, The Scotsman, Fears recording non-crime ‘hate incidents’ could hamper job prospects under disclosure checks

Miller v College of Policing: Social media, ‘non-crime hate incidents’, and the right to freedom of expression. https://www.mountfordchambers.com/miller-v-college-of-policing-social-media-non-crime-hate-incidents-and-the-right-to-freedom-of-expression/

I often scan the headlines of the legacy press when looking for suitable subjects to write about. One such source is The Irish Times, which used to regard itself as being the paper of record but rather like the NY Times has revealed itself to be the paper of the new aristocracy.  Never the less, I saw a heading for an opinion piece by Sorcha Pollak, which piqued my interest. It was entitled,  ‘What changes would women make to the Constitution? Here’s what 10 said’  (IT 03 /02/24) Two things struck me when I saw this article, the first was the  list of the 10 women who would give us guidance on Constitutional changes. Now, I do feel that I have to be fair and point out that Sorcha Pollak didn’t claim that this selection represented a statistical cross section of all women in Ireland. Nor did she claim that they had to live in the real world, which means not being  employed by an NGO, in Academia or described as being an activist. The following is Sorcha’s list:

Article 41.1“The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships, as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”  Irish Times, 18/01/24

Mr. Varadkar is unhappy that the description of the family, in this Article, does not reflect the modern reality that there are other types of family unit that were not common when the Articles were originally drafted. However, there is no difficulty with the original text as it stands as it only makes the point that the family is not a creation of government but of nature. I would suggest that what the framers intended was to establish the general principle of the pre-eminence  of the family in law; that it should be supported and protected and  that it is the natural primary and fundamental unit of Society. What this proposal does is to unnecessarily introduce the concept of a “durable relationship” into the Constitution when it is quite obvious that no one knows what this means. If we accept this amendment, we will be subject to an endless series of court cases to establish what a ‘durable relationship’ is;  determined by unelected Judges, that will dilute it’s commonly understood meaning until it means everything to everyone. It is worth noting that the recent  O’Meara judgement, in respect of Social Welfare legislation, was reached under the current version of  Article 41.1. I will, temporarily, leave discussion of Article 41.1 with some suggestions on how to determine what a ‘durable relationship’ is by referring to the  Chair of Ireland’s Electoral Commission and Supreme Court Judge, Marie Baker. The Guardian reported her as saying, ‘one indicator of durability was treatment by other people. “Are you invited as a couple to weddings? Do people send your postcards, Christmas cards to both of you? These are indicators of your commitment to one another.” (The Guardian, 25/01/24) I would have thought that a joint bank account might be a better indication of durability but if the Chair of Ireland’s Electoral Commission and Supreme Court Judge says Christmas Cards, who am I to say otherwise.

Delete 41.2, which reads: “In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.” Irish Times, 18/01/24

It is proposed that Article 41.2 be deleted. You can tell by all the above crossing out that those on Sorcha Pollak’s list above, are really unhappy with Article 41.2. Those that propose deleting this article take the view that it states that women’s place is in the home. Article 41.2 does not say that women should stay at home. What it does do is recognise that women are the main homebuilders and should be recognised as such. This is as true today as it was true in1937.  ‘In Sinnott v Minister for Education, Ms Justice Denham, the first female Chief Justice, wrote:

“Thus, in Ireland, in relation to the family and the home, women have a constitutionally recognised role which is acknowledged as being for the common good. This gives to women an acknowledged status in recognition not merely of the physical aspect of home making and family building, but of the emotional, social, physical, intellectual and spiritual work of women and mothers. The undefined and valuable role of the father was presumed and remained unenumerated by the drafters of the Constitution.” (Iona Institute 07/02/24)

What it does say is that Mothers, who make the choice to stay at home and raise children,  should not be forced into the workforce because of economic necessity.  Article 41.2 imposes no burden or, duty on any women who makes a different choice. It also doesn’t differentiate between traditional family structures and single parent families, which are overwhelmingly headed by women. As an aside, I did see an opinion piece that suggested that unless we deleted 41.2 we could return to the days of the marriage ban! I should mention that last year we were  celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the  Civil Service (Employment of Married Women) Act, 1973. This law reversed the 1940’s legislation that forced women to resign from public service employment, when they married. Neither the 1940’s legislation and it’s reversal 50 years ago based their arguments on Article 41.2.  I know that any retention or rewording of this Article will not cool the ire  of the proponents of this referendum. However, I am concerned that the unique contribution of woman should not be disappeared from the Constitution. We are at a time  when the very definition of a woman is a matter of dispute and I feel that there is an agenda to redefine what we once understood with certainty, with bland words of little meaning.

Article 41.3 delete the six words in Bold: “The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.” Irish Times, 18/01/24

I am not sure that the deletion of the words, “on which the Family is founded” add anything to Article 41.3 especially since we can’t define what a family is in Article 41.1. A quick look at the the CSO table 1a, Family types in Ireland, Censuses of Population, 1996 – 2016, suggest that 66% of families are still headed by a married man and woman. This would appear to counter the claim by Leo that somehow two thirds of families are in an archaic institution that should be swept away for the sake of modernism. I am not convinced that this article  has prevented the government from supporting any other form of social unit and feel that they  have failed to justify their attack on the majority.

Article 42B The State recognises that the provision of care by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.” Irish Times, 18/01/24

The 40th. Amendment proposes deleting Article 41.2, which we have already discussed, with a new Article 42B. This suggested text is the epitome of bland and has deservedly been attacked by commentators on both sides of the debate. Both sides see this wording as merely vacuous with the objective of replacing 41.2 with something, almost anything. What it does accomplish, when taken with the other amendments, is to delete women, especially mothers, from special mention in the Constitution. It turns the central position of the  of the family in society to mean anything you want it to mean.

So how should we view the proposed Amendments? I suspect that  most of the population will glance at the papers and decide that it has no affect on their daily lives and ignore it. There will be some, who are irritated that Leo is tinkering with the Constitution whilst Public Services such as Health, Housing, Public Safety, Education etc are deteriorating. They may also take the view that this is a vanity project for Leo and associates to virtue signal how modern and progressive they are to their betters in Brussels and Davos. Ironically, the rush to push through the Amendments is so that an announcement of the attempt to diminish the role of women in Irish society, can be made on  International Women’s Day (8th. March). To those that identify with the above,  I would offer the following advice. If you don’t understand the point of a contract or, the terms, then employ the principle of caveat emptor or, buyer beware. If you think that these proposals deflect from serious issues facing the people of the Republic, then  send a message to the government with a resounding NO vote! My own view is, all of the above but also I put these proposals into a wider context and look at what is happening in other parts of the western world. I see a divergence between the political elites and those that they govern. If you think that we are entering into tin foil hat territory, then look around. When we see men in women’s sports in America or, that fact that it was only in 2023 that biological men were banned from women’s prisons in the UK, we can see how far we have travelled down the slippery slope. This attack on social norms, some of which predate civilisation, have been cooking for some time. I will leave you with an extract from a speech by Maria Steen, to the Iona Institute, which should also be read out on International Women’s Day:

“De Beauvoir, the renowned second-wave feminist, spoke in 1975 …. of the need to destroy the “myth of the family and the myth of maternity and of the maternal instinct”. De Beauvoir said that women should not be offered the choice of staying home to raise children, “precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make [it]”. In short, women needed to be forced to do what feminists see as good for them.” (Iona Institute, 07/02/24)

Send a message, vote no!

 

 

Sources

Press Release, 07/12/23, Government approves proposals for referendums on family and care, www.gov.ie/en/press-release/c9193-government-approves-proposals-for-referendums-on-family-and-care/

Rory Carroll, The Guardian, 25/01/24, Ireland kickstarts vote on constitution’s wording about women and  family.www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/25/ireland-kickstarts-vote-on-constitutions-wording-about-women-and-family

Aoife Moore, BBC, 05/12/23, Irish votes on gender and family to be held in March.

Jennifer Bray, Irish Times, 18/01/24, Women in the home referendum: what exactly does the Government want to change, and why? www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/01/25/referendums-march-8th-explained-women-in-the-home-definition-of-family-carers-marriage-international-womens-day-ireland/

Maria Steen, Iona Institute, 07/02/24, The referendums on motherhood and the family, ionainstitute.ie/maria-steens-talk-on-the-referendum/

CSO, Family types in Ireland, Censuses of Population, 1996 – 2016, gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/26847/fb6091d872ac48378c7c091a412df386.pdf#page=null