South Africa says that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and has asked the International Court of Justice to intervene and stop Israeli military action in Gaza. Israel issued its initial defense to South Africa’s charges on Jan. 12, 2024, at the International Court of Justice – the United Nations’ highest human rights […]
The election campaign has well and truly started, and neither side is holding back. In answer to Keir Starmer’s attempts to win over middle England and the aspiring working class in the Midlands and North with tough-sounding rhetoric on law and order, Tories and sympathetic outlets have sought to show that he is, in fact, […]
There exists a group of perhaps 300,000 British children who are three times more likely than their peers to develop mental health problems. These same children are more likely to miss school, get involved in antisocial behaviour, violence and even crime. They should be a priority for any government but no government department is responsible […]
A few days after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, my daughter’s school held a multi-faith assembly, specifically to address some of the tensions that most schools with large numbers of both Jewish and Muslim pupils knew would almost certainly come to the surface. My heart sank when she told me about it. […]
This weekend, like every weekend since 7 October, thousands of people will take to the streets of London to participate in pro-Palestine marches. While these demonstrations have, on the whole, been peaceful, there have been incidents which have led to calls for greater police powers to crack down on hate speech. But tighter protest laws […]
The Equality and Human Rights Commission represents an unsung success of this government. Set up in 2006 by Tony Blair as an umbrella super-agency to promote and enforce human rights and non-discrimination, by 2020 it had become, in effect, a progressive pressure-group led by a self-perpetuating leftism drawn from the genteel quangocracy. In that year, […]
Why was Suella Braverman sacked as Home Secretary? Opinions vary wildly between verbal incontinence and political incompetence. Wherever the truth lies – and we will hear her version in due course – her career was wrecked on the rocks of police ‘operational independence’. What does this mean and what are the implications for her successor? […]
The government’s proposals for criminal justice reform in this week’s King’s Speech fell under the title ‘Keeping People Safe’. However, it could just have easily read ‘keeping our election prospects alive’, as the party’s long held mantle of law and order is crumbling to dust. Nothing exemplifies this more than the recent emergency measures to […]
If you have ever worked in public relations, you will have pondered abstractly about impossible jobs or clients from hell. Shamima Begum, the 24-year-old East Londoner whose underage holiday romance led her into Islamic State, is not someone you would welcome representing. Her name is linked reflexively with some of the most abhorrent ideology and […]
When James’* mother died, he was devastated and isolated. He was befriended by someone who seemingly wanted to help – but was actually the front to a drug gang who made him their slave. They took over his life, his bank account, and used his home as a centre for drug dealing and prostitution. James […]
Intolerance of criminality is a core tenet of conservatism. Shamefully, 85% of crime is committed by repeat offenders – a tiny, persistent minority who know their actions are wrong, and yet choose to carry them out anyway. It is correct therefore to punish and deter those who’s actions blight communities – and this sets us […]
Our criminal justice system is caught in a paradox. We have effectively run out of space to put criminals in a place that often make them worse. The parallel that occurred to me when I read about the government’s plans for emergency measures to tackle overcrowding in our prisons was an inmate who once complained, […]
When the Metropolitan Police was established in 1829, its progenitor, the then Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, ensured that its ability to maintain law and order and to prosecute criminality rested immutably on the approval and respect of the people. He would repeat ever after the aphorism, ‘The police are the public and the public […]
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for CapX on how cybercrime really works, and how human error is at the root of most cyber attacks. In the intervening time we have had Covid, a massive increase in internet use, and a correspondingly massive spike in cybercrime. And for once, ‘massive’ is the […]
The idea that a government’s duties are owed predominantly to its citizens at home rather than to foreigners abroad has a long history. Unfortunately, it seems it is now under threat. The latest and rather worrying threat comes, perhaps predictably, from the inexorable advance of human rights, as exhibited in a decision from Strasbourg earlier this […]
A former soldier charged with terrorism and espionage escapes from prison by strapping himself under a delivery lorry and being driven to freedom. It might sound shocking, far-fetched or like something from an action film. However, having been imprisoned at HMP Wandsworth in 2020 I’m not shocked at all. The most fundamental job of a […]
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