The Charity Commission has, with extraordinary haste, dismissed our complaint about the Institute for Economic Affairs. It said: "the Commission... will rarely intervene when allegations of political bias are made, from whatever angle" - a troubling gloss on Charity law which we are considering with our lawyers.
Imo, the Charity Commission cannot properly be understood as a regulator. Its purposes include the channelling of public money to organisations friendly to the Tory party. And the regulatory harassment of those whose activities are inconvenient to the Tory Party.
Found myself debating @benhabib6 on BBC on whether Reform is Far Right. He didn't repeat @TiceRichard's threat to sue those who said so. But he did intimate I might hear from Farage's lawyers for saying I thought he was anti-semitic (cited by me as a reason Reform is Far Right).
The other reasons I gave: Reform's desire that the UK join Russia and Greece after a military coup in becoming only the third country ever to find intolerable the international human rights norms in the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
In April the United Nations described the Public Order Bill as "deeply troubling legislation that is incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations regarding people’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association." shar.es/agpsHs
Last month, the UN Rapporteur said the crackdown on environmental protest in Britain with “draconian” new laws, excessive restrictions on courtroom evidence and the use of civil injunctions is having a chilling impact on fundamental freedoms. theguardian.com/environment/20…
And in November the UN said the (now) Public Order Act "appears to be a direct attack on the right to the freedom of peaceful assembly" and criticised the long sentences given to environmental protestors. bbc.com/news/articles/…
The Katharine Birbalsingh case is a great case study in the racism and hypocrisy of the right wing press.
Whilst it goes off the rails about a ban on *optional* prayers for Muslim schools...
Local Authority grant maintained schools remain formally *obliged* to hold daily acts of religious worship with a wholly or mainly Christian character...
... about a quarter of all primary schools, 4,630, are Church of England Schools, publicly funded, and about a million children attend them...
"Posturing MPs are suddenly passionate about the Post Office" says The Times. And indeed they are - but not just MPs.
So what is the record of that self-appointed moral high-water of the Fourth Estate, The Times? 🧵
Well, it has been very quick to point the finger at senior Opposition figures. There are multiple articles about a junior Minister in the Coalition Government over ten years ago, Ed Davey.
And The sagacious Times has also carried several pieces suggesting Keir Starmer is to blame.
On the last working day before Christmas - a good time to meet your legal obligations to publish things you don't want anyone to read - the Government published the contract award from the NHS to Palantir. 🧵
The contract was, of course, heavily redacted to defeat the public interest in scrutinising a deal with Palantir, whose libertarian billionaire founder Peter Thiel once attacked the NHS as making people sick. theguardian.com/society/2023/n…
Heavily redacted, but not so heavily as to redact this clause which obliged Palantir to seek prior approval for publicising the agreement or using the NHS name or brand in any marketing.