Laurie Wastell

British officialdom’s zeal for online regulation is setting it on a collision course with a resurgent and energetic US free-speech lobby

When it comes to protests against immigration and asylum hotels, accusations of two-tier policing are never far away. This week the spotlight has fallen on Essex Police, and its handling of a demonstration last week by Epping residents against an asylum hotel in the town, following an alleged sexual assault by a recently arrived Ethiopian

‘We are facing a long, hot summer’, warned a report on social cohesion on Tuesday, ‘with a powder keg of tensions left largely unaddressed from last year that could easily ignite once again’. It only took two days for the first sign of this grim prediction coming true. This time, though, the expression of public

It is with some measure of irritation, I must confess, that I am drawn away from this balmy weekend to discuss the idiotic antics of a so-called musical act by the name of ‘Bob Vylan’. At Glastonbury on Saturday, the frontman of the English ‘punk duo’ led the crowd in a chant. First it was just ‘Free, free Palestine’; but then it became ‘Death, death to the IDF’. They also

Was the prosecution of Lucy Connolly in the public interest? That is the question now being asked of the embattled Attorney General, Richard Hermer, following my story in the Sunday Telegraph that Hermer approved the charge of stirring up racial hatred against the mother and childminder last summer, over a hastily deleted tweet on the night

In 2021, after the barbaric Islamist murder of Sir David Amess MP, the response of Britain’s political class was as baffling as it was shameful: it decided to ramp up censorship of the internet. Somehow, MPs’ vital personal safety came to be equated with the nebulous concept of ‘safety’ online, along with the protection of

Sir Keir Starmer, remarkably, has launched an immigration crackdown. Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ after the Tory ‘one-nation experiment in open borders’, he said on Monday. A Home Office white paper has introduced several measures which will supposedly bring the sky-high numbers down. Most interestingly, the government will extend the required qualification period

At yesterday Prime Minister’s Questions, for the second week running, Kemi Badenoch was savaged by Sir Keir Starmer on the key issue of immigration.  A fortnight ago, eye-watering ONS figures showed that we have added a city the size of Birmingham to our population, with most of the influx coming from outside Europe. This is

The shocking police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson last week has rightly sparked grave concern about the parlous state of freedom of speech in Britain. Sir Keir Starmer has now joined the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch in arguing that police should be concentrating on the physical crime increasingly blighting our towns rather than things that are

The Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has long argued against the Labour party and the left’s ‘divisive agenda of identity politics’. Instead, she has sought to portray the Conservatives as a truly ‘colour-blind party’ and a ‘genuine meritocracy’. Speaking to the Times earlier this year, she even argued that we should not make a ‘big deal’ of

Popping champagne, skulking off to smoke a spliff and pledging to become a life-long Labour voter. Anyone concerned about criminal justice in Britain will find the well-documented glee of the 1,700 prisoners given early release around the country this week galling indeed. As domestic abusers and career criminals walk free, many will have been struck by the contrast with

When Sir Keir Starmer faced off against Rishi Sunak at the despatch box today, in the first Prime Minister’s Questions after the parliamentary recess, he seemed to be rather unsure what his role was. Over the course of their exchanges, the ostensible leader of the country referred to his opposite number not once, not twice,