PETER HITCHENS: That didn't take long! Three weeks in and Labour's nasty diktats have already begun...
It took them no time at all. The sheer spiteful, dishonest and militant nastiness of the Starmer government has been revealed within less than a month of the election.
Those who swallowed Sir Keir's pretence of moderation and his Chancellor's smiley pledges of responsibility and restraint can now regret their folly at leisure.
This is, as I warned, a ferociously radical regime and a creepy one, clearly under stern central control. Its new Ministers, mostly clueless, serve their chief Commissars in an absurdly unbalanced Parliament by mouthing the Blairite jargon written for them.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 has been cancelled by government diktat
But some really know what they're doing. The most frightening sign of the new direction emerged just before the weekend as the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, deliberately strangled a valuable plan to protect free speech in English universities.
Note that this action came in the very early days of the government. It is not an afterthought. It is plainly an urgent desire of the Starmer administration, though I can find no trace of such a policy in the Labour manifesto.
It doesn't seem to be in the King's Speech either. It is a priority, but it is not one the Government wishes to boast about.
The chilly Ms Phillipson is already famous for her spiteful attack on middle-class parents who struggle to afford independent school fees, a stingingly partisan policy whose only important effect is to hurt people who Labour's core voters don't like.
She has now announced that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 has been cancelled by government diktat. It will not come into force on August 1 and may be repealed.
Remember that this is an actual Act of Parliament, passed into law by both Houses and given Royal Assent. It may be repealed, we are told. But that doesn't really matter. It won't come into force anyway.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer
As Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, points out, free speech is the most important of all freedoms, as it allows us to protest when any liberty is taken away.
I think this nasty little action is linked to Chancellor Rachel Reeves's cynical and blatantly dishonest claims that she had no idea of the real state of the national finances, and so must wallop us with new taxes in the autumn.
In their hearts, the new government know that they came to power by hiding their true aims. They know that, quite quickly, they are going to face a lot of public and media criticism. And they are not going to like it.
Will they react, do you think, by admitting they are wrong and mending their ways? Or in some other fashion?
It is now 342 days since Lucy Letby was locked up for the rest of her life on the basis of nothing more than a set of theories. She's been brusquely refused permission to appeal. A second trial has taken place in which I cannot see how there was any real presumption of innocence.
Now there are rumours that she may face fresh charges. For what aim? Do they plan to keep her in prison after she is dead? The only effect of such new prosecutions will be to silence, during these trials, the growing chorus of expert voices casting doubt on her conviction.
A movie without a twist
At last, an actually straightforwardly good film, Twisters, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, ought to fill cinemas. There's no tedious message, the main characters are believable and attractive, the violent fury of tornadoes – and their ability to kill and destroy in a moment – is convincingly shown.
The only fault is that the joke British character, a journalist played by Harry Hadden-Paton, has such perfect American teeth.
New film Twisters, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell
One military occupation the West ignores
We normally love a good anniversary, especially one with military aspects and British connections. So I have been amused to see how few have noticed that 50 years have elapsed since Turkey invaded Cyprus.
It was huge news here. Many Britons on the island were airlifted back to this country by the RAF. It was as illegal as the Anglo-US invasion of Iraq in 2003 (to take an example at random). Turkey said it was responding to an equally lawless putsch in Cyprus by Right-wing thugs with foreign backing.
The event was a close parallel of Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, another illegal action. Russia said it was responding to a thuggish Right-wing coup in Kiev – a putsch which was swiftly condoned (and still is) by London and Washington. t
So both Turkey and Russia were doing things they had long wanted to do – but had not dared until the bad actions of others gave them the excuse. Both claimed to be coming to the aid of compatriots threatened by lawless new regimes. They would, wouldn't they?
Well, half a century later, Turkey still has something like 40,000 troops in Cyprus and has unofficially taken over the north of the island. This seizure will probably never be recognised, but there is no real international pressure to end it. There is very little moralising about this in Western capitals because Turkey – despite being roughly as repressive as Putin's Russia at home – is a key Nato member.
I will be told that, by contrasting the West's two-faced attitude to these two similar events, I am doing something bad called 'whataboutery'. This means nothing. If you yourself do or support something wicked, you are in no position to denounce others for doing the same.
My point is this: The West and Nato do not really object on principle to illegal invasions, so there must be another reason for their stance in Ukraine.
What can it be? Yet we cannot discuss this as the official Opposition is no such thing and slavishly supports whatever the Government does in Ukraine. Why, even the Daily Mail's Boris Johnson won't debate it with me.
I promise to be gentle with you, Al.
A new recruit to my surveillance team produces this picture of an extraordinary notice about dog fouling. She asks: 'How are they enforcing it?' Are they in favour, or against? Though as with most such notices, there is no sign of any human being doing anything at all. Or any dogs.
Wealthy Christian couple who adopted son from Haiti abandon him in Jamaica after discovering his secret habit
