Laurie Wastell

Yesterday’s knife attack in Golders Green is yet another shocking assault on Britain’s Jewish community. Two Jewish men were attacked in the heart of the Jewish community in north-west London in what the Metropolitan Police are treating as a suspected terrorist attack. The victims, one in his 70s and one in his 30s, were rushed to hospital and are, mercifully, now in a stable condition. A poignant detail is that the two men were treated by Hatzola, the same Jewish volunteer emergency services organisation whose ambulances were set on fire just last month. And it of course follows the horrifying Islamist attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur last October.

Labour’s record in government may have been a litany of U-turns and broken promises, but there’s one cause on which the party hasn’t wavered. When the party pledged before the election to ‘make equality central to policymaking’ this, it turns out, was quite true. Businesses clobbered by energy bills and those wanting the small boats to stop may be whistling in the wind, but at least there is one constituency Keir Starmer’s Labour still thinks it can court: diversity managers. After a months-long consultation, Labour is set to push ahead with plans to reintroduce the ‘socioeconomic duty’ in the Equality Act. Whether there’s a burning public demand for more equalities legislation is far from clear, but the idea, we are told, is to ‘level up opportunities for all’.

‘Britain’s most precious asset is our diverse and cohesive democracy’, trilled the opening of a government social cohesion plan just two years ago. The very fact the plan had to be created may have suggested otherwise, but back then, the captains of the multicultural state were at least still trying to keep appearances up. Multiculturalism now expects ordinary Brits to channel the Blitz spirit just to live in their own country. Two years later, following scores of appalling crimes by asylum seekers, ever more revelations about the rape gangs, Islamist terrorism, country-wide anti-immigration riots and blatant electoral sectarianism, those going to bat for multicultural Britain can scarcely muster the strength to lie anymore.

If the Equality Act 2010 made discrimination illegal, then why we have seen the rise of persistent and widespread discrimination against white males across the public and private sectors? Today, some form or other of anti-white social engineering can be found in practically any institution you care to name. Famously in 2023, the RAF, in a bid to make ‘the few’ even fewer, discriminated against 31 ‘useless white male pilots’ in a recruitment scheme. But we can add the NHS, universities, all manner of coveted white-collar grad schemes and internships, the Premier League, GCHQ and local councils.Or just take what we’ve seen in the police.

As long as Britain’s official orthodoxy remains that diversity is our ‘strength’, will the authorities ever be straight with the public about the realities of migration-linked crime? This week, a Pakistani national, Sheraz Malik, was found guilty of two counts of raping an 18-year-old girl in Nottinghamshire. The woman had been drinking at a park in Sutton-in-Ashfield when she was attacked by Malik. She had already been taken to an isolated area and raped by another man he was with, who has yet to be identified. Malik followed proceedings at Birmingham Crown Court via a Pashto interpreter. These crimes are sickening enough in themselves.

Nadhim Zahawi, the one-time Tory chancellor and former vaccines minister, has joined Reform UK. But is that a good thing? For some, his defection is yet another coup for the populist upstarts at the expense of the sinking Conservatives. For others, the arrival of the smooth-talking Tory grandee raises the hackles, suggesting Reform is slowly becoming just another wing of the dreaded ‘uniparty’. Baghdad-born Zahawi is a ‘walking rejoinder’ to tedious media witch-hunts about Reform’s alleged racism My brief survey of Reform's grassroots shows feelings are mixed. One member is concerned about Zahawi’s views on immigration, but says putting the boot into the Tories with such a high-profile catch is no bad thing.

Michael Heseltine is making a bid to become the fresh new face of Remoanerism. Earlier this month ‘Hezza’ wowed the wets at Tory conference with a speech to the effect that Reform are ‘equivalents to the fascists in the 30s’ for the crime of wanting to reduce immigration. This week, having acquired a taste for the spotlight, he has spoken to the Times from his Northamptonshire stately home, setting out his stall in even greater and more tedious detail. Aged 92 and still a Tory peer, he hopes that his ‘final contribution’ to public life ‘may be to try to stop Nigel Farage’ – not out of any personal vanity, you understand, but ‘for the welfare of this country’.

The wall-to-wall chorus of condemnation of Sarah Pochin’s remarks last week about woke advertising has been hysterical even by the left’s standards. ‘Sarah Pochin’s comments were a disgrace’, fulminated Labour’s X account, ‘and Nigel Farage’s silence is deafening.’ David Lammy said the remarks were ‘mean, nasty and racist’ and wants her sacked. Health Secretary Wes Streeting used his weekend media rounds to repeatedly barrack the Runcorn and Helsby MP, even arguing her intervention proves Reform are ‘not fit to govern’. Backbenchers no one has ever heard of are calling for Pochin to lose the whip. Pochin’s intervention began with what was admittedly rather poorly chosen language.

When Nigel Farage appeared to ape Donald Trump by noting the problem of migrants mistreating British wildlife, his comments were swiftly condemned. Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Wednesday, the Reform leader suggested that ‘swans were being eaten in Royal Parks in this country’ and that ‘carp were being taken out of ponds’. Who was to blame? ‘People who come from countries where it’s quite acceptable to do so’, he said, in particular eastern Europeans. During the US election campaign last year, Trump had provoked considerable controversy (and some enjoyable memes) after saying that Haitian migrants were ‘eating the dogs’ in Ohio.

Why was Charlie Kirk murdered? After the horrifying killing of the right-wing activist last week, the focus of American law enforcement and the world’s media has turned to the political leanings and potential motive of his alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson. The 22-year-old former college student is facing the death penalty after being charged with aggravated murder on Tuesday. Given Kirk was a Christian conservative and leading MAGA figure, tipped by some as a future president, Occam’s razor would suggest that his murderer would most likely turn out to be on the far left. Indeed, every bit of evidence that emerged has pointed in this direction.

The outrageous arrest of Graham Linehan this week seems almost designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the British government. Just a day after the news broke, Nigel Farage was already raising the case at a free-speech Congressional committee in Washington, DC, where the Reform leader happily played prime-minister-in-waiting as he opined gravely about our values having gone astray. The row comes as US trade talks loom, where free speech will be high on the agenda. The cause célèbre of Lucy Connolly, arrests for prayer in abortion buffer zones, and the effects of the Online Safety Act on US companies will all be discussed.

It’s a mark of the absurd legalism of Britain’s political system that after a month of fierce protests and years of government intransigence over asylum hotels, the future of the asylum system now rests on the whims of several judges in a dispute about planning permission. The Home Office and the owners of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex are appealing against the temporary injunction granted to Epping Forest district council last week, which ordered its closure as asylum accommodation after weeks of local protests. All this really amounts to is a political excuse for the present dysfunctional asylum system The judgement, which is due today at 2 p.m.