“Read the figures released yesterday that show more than 94,000 ‘hate crimes’ were committed over a 12-month period and you might imagine they all consisted of cases such as mosques being firebombed or Orthodox Jews being attacked in the street.
Those are, of course, very serious offences that deserve to be treated in the severest way.
At first sight, the statistics seem to suggest a rapidly rising intolerance of Britons towards each other — and give succour to the Government’s proposals to extend the definition of hate crime to include acts of misogyny, contempt towards the elderly and even misandry, or hatred of men.
But I can’t read those figures without remembering the many spurious cases where jokes, rude remarks or rough-and-tumble political debate have been recorded as ‘hate crimes’ or ‘hate incidents’.”
Well all I can say is “imagine my surprise”. Let’s face it you’re a struggling Police Force (I’m not going into the “let’s blame the Tories for cuts thing here) that needs to up its “crimes solved” figures. You’ve already milked motorists to death, what next? Oh, I know how about “hate crimes”? Let’s caution/arrest people for saying mean things on Twitter and/or Facebook, we have a winner!
“Take the Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who recently said that he had reported a pro-Brexit group to the police for including the hashtag ‘#Fascist’ in a tweet criticising Tory MP Anna Soubry for wanting to overturn the Brexit vote. It may be a ridiculous exaggeration — but a hate crime?”
That’s not a hate crime, having said that it’s Anna Soubry we’re talking about here, a thoroughly unpleasant woman who, despite her constituents voting “leave” in the UK Referendum on EU Membership (eg Brexit) imputed her constituents were “too stupid to vote” and she remains one of the most vocal “anti Brexit” MPs we have.
“There was the case, too, of a Somerset landlady investigated by police for using a Welsh flag as a target in a St George’s Day archery competition; and the Scottish man convicted of a hate crime for teaching his pet dog to perform a Nazi salute as a (not at all funny) joke.”
Again, not a hate crime, certainly should never have made it to court. Somewhat tasteless though I agree. On the plus side it got right up a lot of people’s noses and irritated the hell out of some extreme liberals so all is good there 😀
“Meanwhile, Nottinghamshire Police have been running a pilot scheme in which they treat wolf-whistling as a hate crime. Yes, they have been branding as ‘hate criminals’ scaffolders who whistle at female passers-by.
That might be boorish, but to try to elevate it to the same level as anti-Semitic rantings or racist abuse is ridiculous.”
All it achieves is to dilute genuine hate crimes.”
Again not a hate crime. Tacky for sure but not a hate crime. You want to know what a real hate crime is? One non indigenous section of the UK populace grooming young females of the UK’s indigenous population and sexually assaulting/raping them over a prolonged period of time. I don’t really need to provide a link do I? It’s been in the news enough in the last couple of years.
Let’s step back for a second and imagine we should “accept” these new definitions of hate crime …. All those MPs who called voters “low information” or “too stupid to know what they were voting for” or “little Englanders” or fascists/racists/waycists/xenophobes/etc surely they’re all guilty of hate crimes as well? That’d be something wouldn’t it? Anna Soubry getting 3 years in Pentonville, bet that’d change her attitude on life. Or Diane Abbott who regularly criticises “white people” on social media, more hate crime, let’s lock her up as well ….
The whole thing is beyond stupid in my opinion. Ok, hate crimes are bad but this isn’t hate crime, it’s mainly “mean words” or “inappropriate behaviour”, none of it worthy of wasting Police time. We have real issues at hand that require the attention of the Police, you know stuff like:
- Moped Muggings
- Moped Robberies
- Acid Attacks
- Knife Attacks
- Terrorist Attacks
- Illegal Immigrants
- Rapists
- etc etc ….
The Police need to change their priorities, they need to “patrol streets, not tweets” (Paul Joseph Watson). Like many of us I’ve been insulted, assaulted and treated like crap at a number of points in my life and can think of at least a dozen examples that could qualify as “hate crimes” (under these bizarre new guidelines) but I just move on.
Steve
PS Some examples of real hate speech levelled at a “right” commentator:
