Obviously I share the horror at her continued political imprisonment, which is one of the lowest points in politics (and our national life) in my 60 years.
A million x yes to this! I don't think what she said was particularly bad and even if it were horrific, so what?!! I find those placards at demos saying 'Kill a Terf' a little bit alarming (as I probably am one) but SO BLOODY WHAT! If someone actually tried to kill me, then I would have a complaint. I call incitement: someone giving a deranged trannie my address as a Terf and saying Trans people would feel safer if I were pushing up daisies. The caveats of 'yes, what Lucy said was awful but....." are so mealy mouthed. Every time I read them I'm thinking, '??? just me then?'....but no Paul Sutton is on the same planet - thank God I'm not alone.
It is more than a fecking disgrace- she should not be in there !!! . I don’t care what she said , she can say what she likes ………. Or so I thought- incredible we have stooped to this . Judge Jeffries would have been most proud .
Thanks Alan - I think only free-speech absolutism can save us. We need to ditch any of the pc nonsense socially, and any hate laws/offence claiming, legally.
Well said! I think of myself as a free speech absolutist. I agree it should only involve the law if you specifically incite violence against a specific individual or specific group of indivuals. The media and social media incited violence against Russians as I recall... another example would be the Fatwas called against many individuals and Jihad being declared against other groups.. these actually incite violence and murder..
Anyway thankyou for sharing your perfectly correct thoughts..
Thanks Sean - as we've seen on our streets, is perfectly ok for some Muslims to incite violence - even murder - and they've done it week after week. That's because of our two-tier system, with the intimidation Islam always exerts meaning they're allowed to.
Nail well and truly driven in with perfect accuracy with the bloody great hammer of principle.
Lucy Connolly's conviction and sentence are sick and disgusting and an absolute perversion of anything we might call 'justice'.
I doubt it will ever happen, but we need to go back through *all* of our laws and revise/ditch those which, in any conceivable way, are designed to protect people's feelings. The Public Order Act of 1986, for example, makes it an offense to use threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour, or to display such things within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress. You will not need me to point out the potential for gross misuse of such a vague law.
Back in 1986, even with such a poorly-worded and poorly-conceived law, we probably intended it only for the most extreme cases because we were a good deal more 'sensible' back then. But what was considered reasonable and proportionate back in 1986 no longer pertains in our weird woke world of today - which is the danger of writing shoddy legislation like this that depends on societal mores.
Many thanks. I think just as you do - we need to be more aggressive and ditch any of the subjectivity/offence stuff. It's embedded. It goes back 40 years and is now destroying our democracy - or has done already.
We also need to have the baseline that words are harmless - so that the very few occasions when they aren't are exceptions. It's the other way now, with an assumption that anything anyone can claim is 'hurtful/harmful/hateful' equates to physical violence.
Hence LC in jail, and actual violent offenders not.
So the great British police search for justice in investigating murder, burglary, assault is just a fiction left only to crime fiction writers to perpetuate whilst the real police just investigate social media and people’s words. Perfect!
Well said Paul. It makes me sick the number of normally sane people who preface any commentary on Lucy Connolly with “of course I wouldn’t condone the sort of language she used”. It’s total crap and playing up to the uber hard left Northamptonshire Police and even harder left Justice Melbourne Inman. Even in anger she said nothing to incite anyone to harm anyone else and we need to get real. I read worse on X every time I look at it and she’s been treated appallingly for doing bugger all wrong. She expressed an opinion “for all I care”. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Horrendous, how 'our side' concede so easily. And how pointless it is to hear the performative virtue signalling. As you say, I read and hear worse - often from the left - every day. Wes Streeting said he'd happily kill Jan Moir.
The right always genuflect at the DEI altar with “what Lucy said was wrong and it’s not language I’d have used”. People on the right including Farage and Isabel Oakeshott need to grow some balls and start saying what they really think. She said what she said to show her anger. It was at a time when Starmer and Gap Year were withholding information. It turned out the rumours weren’t far off the truth about the perpetrator. She even said “for all I care”. Nobody had bloody heard of her and the thing that surprised me was she had 310000 Twitter views! Anyway we on the right are letting her down when we qualify our support.
Let’s see what happens when Labour councillor Ricky Jones “slit throats of right-wingers” pleads not guilty in August having been bailed for 12m. Funny how he pled not guilty unlike those on the right. Any bets taken on this one Paul?
Isn't the Law usually pedantic; and isn't it usually right -- or just necessary -- that it be so? But it doesn't seem to me to have been so in this case. To say "You can do x for all I care" is not the same as saying 'Do it." It is much closer to (very close to) "I don't care whether you do it or not", which says something about the speaker's own attitude to doing x rather than urges other people to do it. It describes the speaker's state of mind rather than advocates a course of action.
This doesn't seem a particularly fine difference to me but, whether fine or not, what possible legal argument can there be for ignoring it? Surely, where cases depend on how documents are read, differences of expression no finer are regularly found to be crucial for making decisions? But not in this case -- even though the colloquialism 'for alI care' is hardly ever used except when no one thinks any course of action due to follow. What native English speaker would take, "You can hang yourself for all I care", an an incitement to self-murder? But that is how we ought to take it, if we go by the verdict and reasoning of that court.
Mightn't Lucy Connolly have fared better if she hadn't deleted her tweet (which looks as if it might be an implicit admission of wrong-doing) and had maintained that the words she had actually used, rather than those attributed to her, didn't incite anyone to do anything?
Isn't the Law usually pedantic; and isn't it usually right -- or just necessary -- that it be so? But it doesn't seem to me to have been so in this case. To say "You can do x for all I care" is not the same as saying 'Do it." It is much closer to (very close to) "I don't care whether you do it or not", which says something about the speaker's own attitude to doing x rather than urges other people to do it. It describes the speaker's state of mind rather than advocates a course of action.
This doesn't seem a particularly fine difference to me but, whether fine or not, what possible legal argument can there be for ignoring it? Surely, where cases depend on how documents are read, differences of expression no finer are regularly found to be crucial for making decisions? But not in this case -- even though the colloquialism 'for alI care' is hardly ever used except when no one thinks any course of action due to follow. What native English speaker would take, "You can hang yourself for all I care", an an incitement to self-murder? But that is how we ought to take it, if we go by the verdict and reasoning of that court.
Mightn't Lucy Connolly have fared better if she hadn't deleted her tweet (which looks as if it might be an implicit admission of wrong-doing) and had maintained that the words she had actually used, rather than those attributed to her, didn't incite anyone to do anything?
It didn't really come down to any discussion, over her wording, since she pleaded guilty. It seems she was misled into this, since the wording would likely have had her found not guilty. The pressure on her to plead guilty is obvious but they're able to hide behind it.
It's no doubt true that had she pleaded Not Guilty there might have been a fuller discussion of that wording but the summary of the case at http://judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lucy-Connolly-v-The-King.pdf makes it plain that there was fully sufficient discussion for the question of what her words did and didn't mean to come up. Mr King, her counsel at the Appeal hearing, for instance, says a number of time that she didn't intend to incite violence but as if that absence of intention never escaped the privacy of her own mind into the words she used. He does get as far as saying "the words of the tweet could not be read as a serious incitement to burn buildings with people inside, or to kill politicians" but doesn't try to say why; and he goes on to say, in what seems to me a retraction, that she wasn't thinking "rationally". But, if her words were no incitement but just a description of her own feelings what is irrational about them and why do they need such an excuse?
The Appeal judge takes it for granted that the wording of her tweet condemns her: "she might have difficulty explaining how it was that, despite using the words she did in her tweet, she did not intend to incite serious violence." He does also say, "We are unable to accept Mr King’s argument that a close textual analysis of the offending tweet (quoted in paragraph 4 above) leads to the conclusion that it was no more than an expression of emotion" but, in saying so, he gives Mr King more credit than he is due because Mr King supplies no such "analysis". And the judge goes on to say, in what seems to me the exact opposite of the truth, that her words are an incitement to violence "on their face". It is just 'on their face' that they are not an incitement to anything. What he should have been forced into saying is that, although, on their face, they are no such incitement, really, somewhere not immediately apparent, they actually are.
I find legal arguments annoying (I used to work in contract disputes) and often meaningless! The contradictions and flippancy are grating, and I feel they're even facetious, when a young mother's liberty is at stake. And these people aren't Ayer or Wittgenstein, despite all the blather about legal minds.
And - as you said before - everyone and his dog knows that 'for all I care' is a qualifier to mean 'I know that sounds bad but that's how I feel'. So, it's the exact opposite of some imperative.
Behind this is the certainty that, having pleaded guilty, the judge could indulge himself. After all, what IS he discussing, if she'd pleaded guilty?
At the original trial, the judge launched into some drivel about diversity being our strength. He couldn't have made it clearer that he was parading his own (irrelevant) political niceties.
A million x yes to this! I don't think what she said was particularly bad and even if it were horrific, so what?!! I find those placards at demos saying 'Kill a Terf' a little bit alarming (as I probably am one) but SO BLOODY WHAT! If someone actually tried to kill me, then I would have a complaint. I call incitement: someone giving a deranged trannie my address as a Terf and saying Trans people would feel safer if I were pushing up daisies. The caveats of 'yes, what Lucy said was awful but....." are so mealy mouthed. Every time I read them I'm thinking, '??? just me then?'....but no Paul Sutton is on the same planet - thank God I'm not alone.
Glad to share this fury! I'm so fed up with the phony fake-outrage about what she said.
Me three, I too have noticed it and been particularly annoyed by it!
Spot on Paul, I'm sick to death of this throat clearing every time someone then sticks up for the right to be offensive. So bloody what!
It's so weak and damaging, to the free-speech cause.
Andrew Doyle is one of the best on this but even he has to do the thing first. Infuriating. https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewdoyle/p/free-lucy-connolly?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=90nra
It is more than a fecking disgrace- she should not be in there !!! . I don’t care what she said , she can say what she likes ………. Or so I thought- incredible we have stooped to this . Judge Jeffries would have been most proud .
I suspect Starmer et al now want her out - as the publicity is getting very bad for them. It's backfired.
Comprehensive and powerful arguments, Paul.
Free speech is still a right, unless it riles 2 Tier, then it's suddenly a matter of national stability.
Thanks Alan - I think only free-speech absolutism can save us. We need to ditch any of the pc nonsense socially, and any hate laws/offence claiming, legally.
Well said! I think of myself as a free speech absolutist. I agree it should only involve the law if you specifically incite violence against a specific individual or specific group of indivuals. The media and social media incited violence against Russians as I recall... another example would be the Fatwas called against many individuals and Jihad being declared against other groups.. these actually incite violence and murder..
Anyway thankyou for sharing your perfectly correct thoughts..
Sean Whitfield
Thanks Sean - as we've seen on our streets, is perfectly ok for some Muslims to incite violence - even murder - and they've done it week after week. That's because of our two-tier system, with the intimidation Islam always exerts meaning they're allowed to.
Bob Dylan wrote:
I learned to hate the Russians, all through my whole life.
If another war comes, it's them we must fight.
With God on Our Side
So many establishment lackeys want us to hate ourselves and the Russians.
Great article Paul,
Nail well and truly driven in with perfect accuracy with the bloody great hammer of principle.
Lucy Connolly's conviction and sentence are sick and disgusting and an absolute perversion of anything we might call 'justice'.
I doubt it will ever happen, but we need to go back through *all* of our laws and revise/ditch those which, in any conceivable way, are designed to protect people's feelings. The Public Order Act of 1986, for example, makes it an offense to use threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour, or to display such things within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress. You will not need me to point out the potential for gross misuse of such a vague law.
Back in 1986, even with such a poorly-worded and poorly-conceived law, we probably intended it only for the most extreme cases because we were a good deal more 'sensible' back then. But what was considered reasonable and proportionate back in 1986 no longer pertains in our weird woke world of today - which is the danger of writing shoddy legislation like this that depends on societal mores.
Many thanks. I think just as you do - we need to be more aggressive and ditch any of the subjectivity/offence stuff. It's embedded. It goes back 40 years and is now destroying our democracy - or has done already.
We also need to have the baseline that words are harmless - so that the very few occasions when they aren't are exceptions. It's the other way now, with an assumption that anything anyone can claim is 'hurtful/harmful/hateful' equates to physical violence.
Hence LC in jail, and actual violent offenders not.
So the great British police search for justice in investigating murder, burglary, assault is just a fiction left only to crime fiction writers to perpetuate whilst the real police just investigate social media and people’s words. Perfect!
Well said Paul. It makes me sick the number of normally sane people who preface any commentary on Lucy Connolly with “of course I wouldn’t condone the sort of language she used”. It’s total crap and playing up to the uber hard left Northamptonshire Police and even harder left Justice Melbourne Inman. Even in anger she said nothing to incite anyone to harm anyone else and we need to get real. I read worse on X every time I look at it and she’s been treated appallingly for doing bugger all wrong. She expressed an opinion “for all I care”. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Horrendous, how 'our side' concede so easily. And how pointless it is to hear the performative virtue signalling. As you say, I read and hear worse - often from the left - every day. Wes Streeting said he'd happily kill Jan Moir.
The right always genuflect at the DEI altar with “what Lucy said was wrong and it’s not language I’d have used”. People on the right including Farage and Isabel Oakeshott need to grow some balls and start saying what they really think. She said what she said to show her anger. It was at a time when Starmer and Gap Year were withholding information. It turned out the rumours weren’t far off the truth about the perpetrator. She even said “for all I care”. Nobody had bloody heard of her and the thing that surprised me was she had 310000 Twitter views! Anyway we on the right are letting her down when we qualify our support.
Back of the net! I despair of our side.
Let’s see what happens when Labour councillor Ricky Jones “slit throats of right-wingers” pleads not guilty in August having been bailed for 12m. Funny how he pled not guilty unlike those on the right. Any bets taken on this one Paul?
He'll get a suspended sentence max, but probably bound over?
Or found not guilty?
Bernard Manning knew a thing about straight talking. I'd imagine the pathetic sharks on the left would spill their soy latte's in horror.
Isn't the Law usually pedantic; and isn't it usually right -- or just necessary -- that it be so? But it doesn't seem to me to have been so in this case. To say "You can do x for all I care" is not the same as saying 'Do it." It is much closer to (very close to) "I don't care whether you do it or not", which says something about the speaker's own attitude to doing x rather than urges other people to do it. It describes the speaker's state of mind rather than advocates a course of action.
This doesn't seem a particularly fine difference to me but, whether fine or not, what possible legal argument can there be for ignoring it? Surely, where cases depend on how documents are read, differences of expression no finer are regularly found to be crucial for making decisions? But not in this case -- even though the colloquialism 'for alI care' is hardly ever used except when no one thinks any course of action due to follow. What native English speaker would take, "You can hang yourself for all I care", an an incitement to self-murder? But that is how we ought to take it, if we go by the verdict and reasoning of that court.
Mightn't Lucy Connolly have fared better if she hadn't deleted her tweet (which looks as if it might be an implicit admission of wrong-doing) and had maintained that the words she had actually used, rather than those attributed to her, didn't incite anyone to do anything?
Isn't the Law usually pedantic; and isn't it usually right -- or just necessary -- that it be so? But it doesn't seem to me to have been so in this case. To say "You can do x for all I care" is not the same as saying 'Do it." It is much closer to (very close to) "I don't care whether you do it or not", which says something about the speaker's own attitude to doing x rather than urges other people to do it. It describes the speaker's state of mind rather than advocates a course of action.
This doesn't seem a particularly fine difference to me but, whether fine or not, what possible legal argument can there be for ignoring it? Surely, where cases depend on how documents are read, differences of expression no finer are regularly found to be crucial for making decisions? But not in this case -- even though the colloquialism 'for alI care' is hardly ever used except when no one thinks any course of action due to follow. What native English speaker would take, "You can hang yourself for all I care", an an incitement to self-murder? But that is how we ought to take it, if we go by the verdict and reasoning of that court.
Mightn't Lucy Connolly have fared better if she hadn't deleted her tweet (which looks as if it might be an implicit admission of wrong-doing) and had maintained that the words she had actually used, rather than those attributed to her, didn't incite anyone to do anything?
It didn't really come down to any discussion, over her wording, since she pleaded guilty. It seems she was misled into this, since the wording would likely have had her found not guilty. The pressure on her to plead guilty is obvious but they're able to hide behind it.
It's no doubt true that had she pleaded Not Guilty there might have been a fuller discussion of that wording but the summary of the case at http://judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lucy-Connolly-v-The-King.pdf makes it plain that there was fully sufficient discussion for the question of what her words did and didn't mean to come up. Mr King, her counsel at the Appeal hearing, for instance, says a number of time that she didn't intend to incite violence but as if that absence of intention never escaped the privacy of her own mind into the words she used. He does get as far as saying "the words of the tweet could not be read as a serious incitement to burn buildings with people inside, or to kill politicians" but doesn't try to say why; and he goes on to say, in what seems to me a retraction, that she wasn't thinking "rationally". But, if her words were no incitement but just a description of her own feelings what is irrational about them and why do they need such an excuse?
The Appeal judge takes it for granted that the wording of her tweet condemns her: "she might have difficulty explaining how it was that, despite using the words she did in her tweet, she did not intend to incite serious violence." He does also say, "We are unable to accept Mr King’s argument that a close textual analysis of the offending tweet (quoted in paragraph 4 above) leads to the conclusion that it was no more than an expression of emotion" but, in saying so, he gives Mr King more credit than he is due because Mr King supplies no such "analysis". And the judge goes on to say, in what seems to me the exact opposite of the truth, that her words are an incitement to violence "on their face". It is just 'on their face' that they are not an incitement to anything. What he should have been forced into saying is that, although, on their face, they are no such incitement, really, somewhere not immediately apparent, they actually are.
I find legal arguments annoying (I used to work in contract disputes) and often meaningless! The contradictions and flippancy are grating, and I feel they're even facetious, when a young mother's liberty is at stake. And these people aren't Ayer or Wittgenstein, despite all the blather about legal minds.
And - as you said before - everyone and his dog knows that 'for all I care' is a qualifier to mean 'I know that sounds bad but that's how I feel'. So, it's the exact opposite of some imperative.
Behind this is the certainty that, having pleaded guilty, the judge could indulge himself. After all, what IS he discussing, if she'd pleaded guilty?
At the original trial, the judge launched into some drivel about diversity being our strength. He couldn't have made it clearer that he was parading his own (irrelevant) political niceties.