Wow… and its been what, 2 weeks since the convention! Real liberals should be abolishing that bill, not adding to it.

Agree Nick there is no need for additional legislation , provided the English begin to react with extreme violence to that sort of scum the whole thing would have to be banned on public order grounds like Geert Wilders’ visit . They daren`t ban it in Luton because they are terrified the numerous local jihadists will blow up the airport. No Muslims turned up to support the troops I see . I expect the few that actually want to do something positive for the country are scared shitless.

How could you “see” that no Muslims turned up to support the troops, Newmania?

And to think your justification for not being racist when you said Muslims were nothing but trouble was that you were making a comment on he religion of Islam & always distinguished between religion and ethnic identity.

To be fair to the Tories, (not something I’m inclined to be), this could just be a single MP. Seeing which way they whip this will be far more revealing.

All those liberals that idiotically fell in love with him last summer must be looking pretty fucking sheepish right now.

Wrong one, Nick/Leon. That was David Davis and this is David Davies.

Tim calm down , dear and let me introduce you to the idiomatic usage of ,“I see” ,meaning “ as I am informed “and in this case by this blog

‘Peter Whittle, director of some obscure organisation called New Culture Forum writes on Conservative Home:-But I would ask the Baroness [Sayeeda Warsi], why were there no Muslim voices in that crowd angrily denouncing the protesters? Why did there appear to be virtually no Muslims amongst the crowds lining the pavement?’

Sorry to shoot your fox .As I say I have no doubt many were scared , it is notoriously an areas rife with jihadism . It is a point though , if you are allowed to do this sort of thing why not let the BNP parade though no -go Muslims areas with “Vermin go home “ banners ?.
I take it public order would the grounds for permission being denied . Well you see the problem .The only people whose sensitivities are catered for are the violent extreme loons likely to cause a public order problem .

“Wrong one, Nick/Leon. That was David Davis and this is David Davies.”

Ah, thank god for that! Still, shitty amendment, definitely tabloid courting.

And just how does Peter Whittle know it? So far as I can see he’s just assumed it.

Anyway, as I understand it there was no organised counter-demonstration in support of the troops. The people the demonstrators clashed with were friends and relatives of the troops, who were there to welcome them home.

Wrong one, Nick/Leon. That was David Davis and this is David Davies.

Haha great, I stand amusingly corrected!

“Loose cannon shoots self in foot”.

… I hope.

“We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space.”

Hmm. Maybe that would have been a better phrase for an amendment covering dissident protests. It seems ideal to me.

Mind you, I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘our space’ – in the context of ‘community’ or ‘society’ or ‘country’ or, dare I say it, ‘nation’ – or even merely ‘the real world’. Tricky.

Leave me alone. Simple as that.

Crazy world: I opposed the Religious Hatred Bill because I though it would restrict my right to criticize religious lunatics, and now I find myself opposing the Bill in order to defend the rights of religious nutters to spout their bile.

Still, I can take heart that those the Bill was intended to placate are now realizing the implications for themselves.

Old Holborn:
“Leave me alone. Simple as that.”

Indeed.

I’d forgotten about personal space – or Myspace – or however individuality is characterised nowadays. The whole idea of ‘Our Space’ sounds pretty odd, when you stop to think about it and take into account the vital concept of the individual as separate entity with personal, powerful, inalienable rights.

Still tricky, then.

I’m with you. Leave me alone.

As we wrote somewhere else….

David Davies (MP for Monmouth) who appears in this interview, is not the David Davis (MP for Haltemprice and Howden), who resigned the Tory whip, fought and won a by-election as an independent and is opposed to the proposed 48 day rule. He is a vociferous campaigner for freedom of speech and would not, in our opinion, support such legislation, and rightly so.

Whether you agree with what these idiots did in Luton or not, knowing they can say what they like is the price we pay for knowing that you or I can say what we like.

Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speaker’s Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear. From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of State control of unofficial ideas. A central purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights has been to set close limits to any such assumed power. We in this country continue to owe a debt to the jury which in 1670 refused to convict the Quakers William Penn and William Mead for preaching ideas which offended against State orthodoxy.’

Leave well alone.

Newmania – There were a significant number of muslims in the crowd greeting the soldiers. Clear from the MSM coverage, including interviews that were broadcast prominently.

Do you get your information from the BNP? Or from the nassy Tories down there on the south coast?

There were no obvious muslims in the (BNP) mob that actually caused the more significant disturbance. But I wouldn’t join a BNP-led protest either. Would you?

The left thinks that Geert Wilders should be banned and anti-army protests allowed; the right thinks the opposite.

As an actual liberal (not “a liberal, but…”) I’m sick of the bloody lot of you.

The left and right routinely swap policies around over long periods of time – case in point: economic sanctions.

In the 80s, the left totally supported the use of sanctions against the Republic of South Africa – the right opposed them as ineffective and counter-productive.

Everything changed in 1991 when George Bush Senior decided to use sanctions against Iraq (of course, the USA had already used them against Cuba so the right talked out of its arse as usual on the South African issue). This signalled to the right world wide that sanctions were now an appropriate tool – a position they’ve held since then. The left immediately decided that sanctions would be ineffective and counter-productive if not outright immoral because of the effects on the civilian population (just the same argument used by the right concerning South Africa previously – an argument rejected by the Left).

You can find more examples if you look. Once you see them doing this, you stop listening to them squawk their parrot lines.

I wasn’t politically conscious at the time of either case, but there’s a strong case to be made that the white population of South Africa were complicit in apartheid in a way that subjects of a dictatorship in Iraq couldn’t possibly be. And representatives of the majority population who weren’t complicit in South Africa were calling for sanctions, boycotts etc.

However in hindsight I agree that sanctions in South Africa achieved little – it was the industrial actions & the resistance (including so-called terrorism) of the black population in South Africa that forced a change.

The Left in the 80s accepted that sanctions against South Africa would have adverse economic effects on the *black* population – but viewed it as acceptable collateral damage in order to destroy an evil system. Just like the right over Iraq, who asserted that the oppressed population of Iraq would cheer bombs falling on their heads, they argued that the black population supported sanctions even if it caused them harm.

I didn’t want to start a debate about apartheid and sanctions – just to point out how the left and right expediently maneuver around various policy positions and change sides quite routinely. They squawk loudly about principle when it has nothing to do with their actions.

This is David “I make Nadine look sane” Davies, right? Headbanger in chief of the lunatic fringe?

There are times (not many, admittedly) when I feel a bit sorry for Davey boy, having to lead a party with idiots like that on the back benches.

Do you get your information from the BNP? Or from the nassy Tories down there on the south coast?

As I said , from this blog.