David Shipley is a former prisoner who writes, speaks and researches on prison and justice issues.
Should single men be allowed to buy a baby? Obviously not, you might think. But since 2019 British men have been legally allowed to obtain a child though the surrogacy process. When a baby is born to a surrogate, they are often taken from their mother shortly afterwards, to prevent infant and mother bonding (in
This morning, the BBC of all places, is reporting it has unearthed a ‘shadow industry of law firms and advisers’ which is ‘charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay’ in order to be granted asylum status. In what is just ‘the first part of a major undercover investigation’, the national broadcaster
The Southport murders and maimings did not need to happen. Three little girls, Elsie, Alice and Bebe, should still be alive. That is the conclusion of the first phase of the Southport Inquiry, which was published today. Who then, is to blame? Axel Rudakubana himself, of course, but reading through the report it is clear
There was once a time when we were told that migration would make us rich, ensure our pensions were paid and that diversity made us stronger. Those arguments are dying, with the fiscal case demolished by the likes of the Migration Advisory Committee. Even the government’s latest cohesion strategy, ‘Protecting What Matters’, admits that diversity
The government’s new cohesion strategy, ‘Protecting What Matters: Towards a more confident, cohesive and resilient United Kingdom’, has attracted attention because of its introduction of an ‘anti Muslim hostility’ code, its erasure of the English as an ethnic identity, and its quite confused and bizarre messaging. What has so far gone unremarked is its Mussolinian
After Labour came third in Gorton and Denton, the government had a choice. Chase the lost Green vote by moving closer to its positions on open borders, an amnesty for all illegal migrants and an end to deportations, or follow Reform who have pledged to make deportations non-justiciable and deport ‘up to 280,000’ illegal migrants
For much of the last year, it has seemed like the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been battling to create a de facto Islamic blasphemy law in Britain. But today, they suffered a great defeat when the Court of Appeal rejected their bid to overturn the acquittal of Hamit Coskun, whose conviction for burning a
After Zia Yusuf’s announcement that Reform would create a ‘UK Deportation Command’ (UKDC), much of the media leapt to make comparisons with ICE in America. The Guardian described it as an ‘ICE-style deportation plan’, the Independent an ‘ICE-style UK border agency’, and even the Mail stated that ‘Reform is planning to create a British version
A Transport for London (TfL) advert has been banned for ‘perpetuating a negative racial stereotype about black men’. The decision, issued today by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), relates to an advert TfL from October last year. According to the ASA it: ‘Featured a video of a black teenage boy on a bus. The teenage
Labour’s new Representation of the People Bill, introduced to Parliament last week, has drawn attention because it will give around 1.6 million 16- and 17-year-olds the vote. But hidden within the bill is an innocuous term – ‘automatic registration’ – that will also usher in a far more significant and controversial change. Governments should be chosen
On 22 July last year, in Nuneaton, a 12-year-old girl was playing on the swings. There she was spotted by Ahmad Mulakhil, an Afghan asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK four months previously. At the time, Mulakhil was staying in a taxpayer-funded House of Multiple Occupation (HMO). The Afghan followed the girl, and
Nathan Bennett was employed at a nursery, caring for toddlers, when he committed 21 sexual offences against five of them. These include two rapes, two sexual assaults by penetration, 12 sexual assaults, four incidents of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and one count of ‘engaging in sexual activity in the presence of
There’s so much bad news about our prisons that it’s easy to become fatigued by it. Another failing jail, another prison awash with drugs, another inmate released in error. As a result, often it’s only the most extreme or shocking examples which hit the headlines. But there is one particular kind of prison news story
Ever since Labour was elected, every time there has been another disaster in our jails, or another set of terrible data, it has been briefed that ‘this government inherited prisons in crisis’. To be fair to the government, the Tories did leave our jails broken, overcrowded and crumbling, but this line has also been a
In July 2024, a Sudanese man named Deng Chol Majek entered the UK illegally, crossing the Channel in a small boat. Majek travelled through Libya and Italy before arriving in Germany. There he claimed asylum, which was refused. So he made his way to Britain. Majek claimed to be 18, and applied for asylum here.
This government knows that if it doesn’t turn the tide on migration it is destined for electoral oblivion. The Home Secretary has said that ‘illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on communities’, and that ‘asylum hotels…are blighting communities’. This is why the government is determined to close the asylum hotels. But its ‘solution’ is
Even as he resigned, Craig Guildford couldn’t do the decent thing. Perhaps that’s no surprise. We have learned in recent weeks that the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police has been habitually obfuscating over the circumstances under which Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from Birmingham, and even misled parliament when he failed to disclose
Keir Starmer is, in many ways, a remarkable prime minister. He is remarkably uncharismatic and remarkably unable to discern the mood of the nation he governs. He is remarkable in his unpopularity, with the British public now even preferring Nicolas Maduro to Our Man From Islington. He is remarkable in his number of U-turns, digital
Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, has been discussing London’s crime rates. Rowley it seems, is eager to talk about London’s homicide rate – which fell last year. During one interview he told listeners that he ‘is about facts and evidence cos I’m a copper’, before going on to provide some highly selective statistics
There’s a strange pattern in how the UK discusses policy, and once you notice it you realise it’s everywhere. What happens is that there’s a problem, often something which makes us less safe. The problem will be fundamentally a result of policy, and often something we’re ‘forced’ to endure because of laws we have created.
