Brendan O’Neill

Why is there not more disquiet over Yvette Cooper’s promise to crack down on ‘harmful’ beliefs? To my mind it ranks as one of the most chilling political pledges of the modern era. The thought of a Labour government, or any government, imperiously decreeing which ideas are ‘harmful’ and which are benign leaves me cold. It’s a first step to tyranny and it needs to be walked back. A war on ‘harmful’ beliefs would give the government a blank cheque to demonise views that are old-fashioned, possibly unpopular or just not very PC The Home Secretary has commissioned a rapid review of ‘extremist ideologies’ as part of a new government counter-extremism strategy. She has vowed to come down hard on people who push ‘harmful or hateful beliefs’.

A flyer calling for the expulsion of an ethnic group from parts of London was widely shared online yesterday. There were also reports of menacing chants being made outside a place of worship. Were the far-right thugs of riotous Britain up to no good again? Actually, this time the bigotry was coming from the other side, from the self-styled anti-fascists of the radical left. I thought these protests were about riotous bigotry here at home, not conflicts in the Middle East? Yes, it seems yesterday’s anti-racist gatherings may not have been entirely anti-racist. A group called Finchley Against Fascism shared a virtual leaflet inviting people to gather in Finchley in north London to show their opposition to the bigotry and chaos of recent days.

A Sky News reporter having his microphone grabbed and dropped to the ground might seem like a trifling story right now, given everything that’s happening in the country. But when the mic-grabber is none other than Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, it’s a different matter. A very different matter. In a democracy, cops don’t treat journalists in such a dismissive, degrading fashion. It was outside the Cabinet Office that Sir Mark outrageously interfered with the property of a reporter. The man from Sky News asked him if he was going to ‘end two-tier policing’. And instead of answering – or not answering, if he wants to be a big baby about it – Sir Mark yanked Sky’s mic and seemed to push it to the ground.

Will Southport’s suffering never end? First, the Merseyside town was rocked by the barbarism of a frenzied knife attack that left three girls dead and others critically injured. Then it was beset by unrest. Just hours after yesterday’s vigil for the slain girls, thugs clashed with cops. They set a police van on fire and threw bricks at a mosque. It was a grim orgy of destruction that insulted the quiet dignity the good people of Southport have shown since evil visited their town on Monday. Double standards have crept into the discussion of Southport’s disorder Everyone of good conscience will condemn yesterday’s riotous events. Thirty-nine officers were injured, eight seriously. As to the disorder at a mosque: that was an act of bristling bigotry, plain and simple.

So now we know: nowhere is safe from the entitled fury of the Just Stop Oil mob. Not even Stonehenge. That prehistoric wonder, one of the oldest monuments of humankind, has been showered with orange powder paint by JSO’s loons. They say they want to ‘raise awareness’ of the climate crisis. All they’ve really raised awareness of is what conceited, heartless narcissists they are. These people really do believe they are saving the planet, don’t they? This was cultural desecration. It was savagery masquerading as protest. To attack a 5,000-year-old monument, this stone echo of the earliest stirrings of human civilisation, is to show horrific disregard for the history and people of this nation.

Every now and then you see an event and you think to yourself: ‘This will go down in history.’ Last night’s revolt of the Jews of London against a ‘pro-Palestine’ mob is one such event. Jews and their allies gathered at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley to defend its showing of a film about Hamas’s fascistic massacre at the Nova music festival on 7 October. Unbelievably – or not, perhaps – the ‘Palestine solidarity’ set wanted the screening to be cancelled. No way, said the Jewish rebels, loudly and proudly, many of them draped in the Israeli flag. It was truly stirring stuff, a bold act of people’s defiance against cancel culture and the slow, lethal creep of a new anti-Semitism.

I see JK Rowling is being cruel again. Her nasty streak is off its leash. She’s bullying random people and engaging in ‘unedifying’ behaviour. What monstrous utterance has she issued this time? What fresh bigotry has spewed from her tweeting fingers? Brace yourselves: she called a man a man. Yes, hold the front page: a woman has accurately described a member of the male sex. I’m old enough to remember when a public figure had to crack a racist joke or say something nice about Hitler in order to hit the headlines. Now they just have to use the word ‘bloke’ about a bloke. Rowling is actually pushing back against cruelty It was over the weekend that Rowling committed her blasphemy.