Thread: The rise of Reform.

Originally Posted by taxexile

the rise of reform is well underway, and if labour want to remain in power they will need to re think their woke diversity rich anti white manifesto.

Because the Torygraph said so.

^^ encouraged to work?

The lazy freeloading fukers should be forced to work. Start by severely curtailing the PIP farce, backout something universal credit too which is essentially the taxpayer subsidising company's poor pay, get pay rates to a level that are able to allow people to live above subsistence level.

Originally Posted by david44

Are you in favour of encouraging burning of those you disdain?

of course not.

I have no ideal solution but defending literally inflammatory behaviour surely is not the way forward?

i am not defending her comments, comments made in anger and quickly corrected, but amalarmed by her punishment, especially when you read
about criminals with dozens of previous offences for theft and violence avoiding imprisonment and being given yet another chance. this was her first "offence".
a bereaved mother, a good person who got upset, made a mistake and let her mouth run away with her, but quickly corrected it but still paid paid a heavy heavy price.

starmer .... the so-called human rights lawyer - what did he do to lucy connolly’s rights?


when you say something in anger that you later regret it can be apologised for and soon forgotten. when you post something in anger it is there forever. she should never have been prosecuted, she was low hanging fruit, an easy result for the police and for starmer.

here is her story, it is a long read and obviously biased towards her, but i'm sure you can see through the bias and come to an informed decision as to whether her sentence and subsequent treatment was fair or not, bearing in mind that due to prison overcrowding convicted rapists, murderers and violent robbers were being released on parole after serving a fraction of their sentences to make way for those convicted of lesser offences.

I heard the full story of the woman jailed for two years for a tweet. Her injustice shames Britain
An ugly social media post landed Lucy Connolly with a 31-month sentence – her treatment is a testament to our injustice system



..... writing about a woman thrown into jail in our own country largely to act as a warning to others. A widely-respected and adored childminder described by one parent as “the kindest British person I’ve met”, a mother of two children (one living, one dead), a carer to a sick husband, by whose side she also appeared in his role as a Tory councillor.

As I write this, that woman is not only serving a sentence many legal experts consider to be outrageously harsh, but is being denied the opportunity for time at home with her family which is granted to jailmates around her who are guilty of actual physical harm. “You’ve upset a lot of people, Lucy,” one probation officer explained when she asked why she was being denied ROTL (Release on Temporary Licence), which allows inmates up to two overnight stays at home each month.

If the name Lucy Connolly rings a bell it’s because she was one of the 1,500-plus people arrested in connection with the social unrest which followed the July 29 Southport massacre of three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

In fact, that’s not strictly accurate. Mrs Connolly, then aged 41 – she turned 42 in prison in January – played no part in the rioting, but a tweet she posted on the day when Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice da Silva Aguiar were murdered by Axel Rudakubana was enough to get her arrested eight days later, and charged under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986, with publishing material intending to stir up racial hatred.


The sentencing judge paid little attention to Lucy’s status as a mother of a 12-year-old child and a carer for a husband with a serious blood disease.

It was without doubt a horrible, hateful and deeply offensive tweet. “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f---ing hotels full of the b-----ds for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it.”

Having posted the tweet around 8.30pm, Lucy took the family’s German pointer, Harley, for a walk, had a chance to think better of what she’d written in the heat of the moment, returned home and deleted the tweet. It must have been visible for less than four hours, but that was enough time for someone to take a screenshot.

Ray Connolly knew how easily his wife was triggered by the suffering and death of children. He says she was always writing to MPs and to the papers if there was ever a case of neglect or kids being harmed on the news. In 2011, the Connollys lost their firstborn, Harry, aged 19 months as a result of atrocious failures in NHS care. After multiple hospital visits, and Lucy pleading with a paediatrician to put the listless toddler on a drip, the Connollys took Harry home and laid him in a cot by their bed. They woke at 4am to find the lifeless body of their tiny son. Lucy screamed at Ray to do CPR while she called an ambulance and Ray, who is an immensely practical chap, best person in a crisis, did his best. “But rigor mortis had already set in,” he tells me, the horror of that moment never to be extinguished.

There followed a bruising battle to “get justice for Harry”. Although the coroner found a catalogue of catastrophic failures at the hospital, it was not ruled to have committed gross negligence manslaughter as Harry’s devastated parents had wanted. (“Those doctors have got away with killing my son,” Lucy said.) The Connollys went on to have a “rainbow baby”, two years later, a daughter called Holly*, now aged 12, but Lucy, who received a diagnosis of PTSD after she lost her baby, never truly recovered. Hearing about a mass stabbing of little girls in Southport was enough to tip her over the edge.


When Ray got home that day, he found her in the kitchen with the six toddlers she looked after. “Lucy was crying.” In the absence of any clear information from the authorities about the killer’s identity (Rudakubana was initially described to a disbelieving public only as a Cardiff-born choirboy) and with Merseyside police and Government ministers still insisting the massacre was “not terror-related” the situation on social media was extremely volatile.

There was widespread anger that such a monstrous attack had been targeted at the most vulnerable members of our society. That was the state Lucy Connolly was in when she posted the fifty-one words that would ruin her life for a second time, and turn her into the ideal poster girl for Starmer’s pledge to impose heavy sentences on “far-Right thugs”.

Ray knew nothing about the tweet until the police turned up at the house and took his wife away. It was around 8am and all of the infants Lucy looked after were being dropped off for the day by their parents. (Mrs Connolly’s precious charges have included Nigerian, Somalian, Jamaican, Bangladeshi, Lithuanian and Polish, as well as white British, kids. “It’s like the blimmin’ United Nations in here,” the childminder used to joke.) Lucy went with the police “quiet as a lamb, she thought if she did as she was told everything would be fine,” recalls Ray.

I ask him if he ever thought the family’s tragic history and his wife’s mental distress would help Lucy with her case. He shakes his head. “I knew things were bad when Starmer and the Home Office started going on about the ‘far-Right’, they obviously had an agenda.” Over the next few days, Lucy Connolly ceased to be a person and became a demonised figure stripped of nuance and humanity. “Conservative councillor’s racist wife.” That was her name from now on.

Looking back, we can see how it was expedient for panicking politicians to blame social media for civil unrest rather than acknowledge the growing anxiety about uncontrolled immigration that fuelled the rioting. (That would have meant officialdom shouldering some of the blame.) While social media can amplify content that inflames tensions there is little or no evidence that a single post persuades law-abiding people to engage in violent protest.

On July 30, the day after Lucy Connolly’s tweet, Sir Keir Starmer was jeered when he laid a wreath at the scene of the Southport attack and hastily scuttled away, earning him the nickname “Nineteen Seconds” for the amount of time he had given the distraught crowd. That same day, newly-elected MP Nigel Farage posted a video in which he asked whether the police were deliberately withholding information from the public and wondered whether the incident was terror-related. The Reform UK leader was widely criticised for giving legitimacy to “conspiracy theories” about the Southport attacker. Which were true, of course.


‘She thought if she did as she was told everything would be fine’ says Ray of his wife’s arrest Credit: Jeremy Selwyn
Down at the police station in Northampton, meanwhile, it was dawning on Lucy Connolly that her protestations that she had made a terrible error of judgment and she was really sorry were falling on deaf ears. “I couldn’t quite believe what they were telling me – someone who’d never broken the law,” Lucy would recall. “Whatever I’d done, police made it quite clear I was going down for this, their intention was always to hammer me.”

The omens were definitely not good. Lucy’s lawyer, a young duty solicitor, commissioned a psychiatric report on his client but it felt weirdly perfunctory, far from the rigorous evaluation she’d had in London after Harry’s death when she got her diagnosis of PTSD. This new psychiatrist, who spoke to Lucy for just an hour on a video call, “didn’t even ask me about Harry”.

There was worse to come. The police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) released a statement saying that Lucy “told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them”.

But Lucy hadn’t said that. What she said in her long interview with the police was, “I’m well aware that we need immigrants… I’m well aware that if I go to the hospital there are immigrants working there and the hospital wouldn’t function without them. I’m [also] well aware of the difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants and they are not checked and [nor is] what they might have done (any crimes) in their country of origin – it’s a national security issue and they’re a danger to children”. Sentiments which are shared by millions of British people.

Lucy broke down and cried when she heard how her words had been misrepresented. Whatever else she was, she was not a bigot. Lucy and her two sisters had been raised by an old-fashioned socialist mother to abhor racism. The Connollys asked for a transcript of the police interview which was grudgingly handed over after a long delay. Lucy’s mother complained to the CPS and they corrected the statement on their website to match what Lucy had actually said. Too late.

Police also accused Lucy of previous racist posts. Turns out she had called a friend “Pikey” after he had called her “Brummie c--t”. Even banter could be passed off as evidence of malignant character.


After taking advice from her solicitor, Lucy pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred. “It wasn’t my intention to be racist,” Lucy protested, but her initial resolve to fight took a bad knock when a bail application was refused.

Lawyers I’ve spoken to say it was an “astonishing” decision and that there were no substantial grounds for refusing bail.

Lucy had already deleted her Twitter account after posting “I know people are angry, but violence is not the answer”. So she wasn’t going to commit a further offence. Nor was she about to do a runner – not with Ray and Holly at home. In short, there was no justification for keeping Lucy Connolly in custody. Ordinarily, bail would have been a formality. But judges were refusing almost all bail applications connected to the Southport riots.

Notably, some of the most senior judges were drafted in to handle cases which would normally be dealt with in a magistrates’ court. But magistrates could only impose sentences of up to 12 months – clearly not what the PM, who had set up a violent disorder unit to look like he was in charge, had in mind.

‘Collateral damage’
Was it true, as some have suggested, that judges all had their orders from above? That seems unlikely. “I think it was more an informal pressure,” says one senior lawyer who represented a Southport defendant. “A fear of rioting that had the effect of inducing a herd mentality. There was a sense that judges had to crack down hard on this. So it had the same effect as an order from on high. People like Lucy Connolly were casualties, collateral damage if you like.”

With her bail application refused and being held on remand, Lucy was panicking. “Imagine you’re a mother with a child at home,” says one lawyer. “You’ve never had any contact with the police. Suddenly, you’re arrested, then thrown into jail. There was a feeling of bewilderment, of terror.”

Ray Connolly was convinced by a couple of leading barristers who insisted that his wife should plead not guilty – a jury, they said, was unlikely to convict a patently decent woman like Lucy for one horrible tweet. “If I could have got her round a table with those barristers, I’m sure she would have gone with ‘not guilty’,” Ray says. But Lucy herself was in jail where she was surrounded by women who had waited months for a trial date. “You just don’t know how long you’ll be here,” she argued with Ray. “I might not get to court until spring.”

She would, however, get a large discount if she pleaded guilty. She’d be out in time for Christmas, she believed. Lucy is a tenacious researcher, but while she was on remand she found it very hard to look things up, get proper advice or even speak to her solicitor.

“It became apparent early on I was a lost cause,” she told Ray. All her life, Lucy had been a fighter for justice. When she was a child, her mother had urged her so many times, “Lucy, please learn to play the game”, but that pugnacious little girl would never listen. “But it’s not fair, Mum,” she always answered. Lucy was weary now, though, the years of fighting for Harry had taken their toll. A guilty plea looked like the fastest way to put this nightmare behind her. “I don’t give a damn about having a criminal record,” she said to herself. “I want to be at home with Ray and Holly.”

Ray faced calls for his resignation after defending Lucy to Sky News Credit: Jeremy Selwyn
It was a terrible decision, if a perfectly understandable one. “Lucy basically had to admit she was the person she was the opposite of,” says Ray. A sad sentence I can’t seem to get out of my head.

Cllr Connolly attracted his own share of abuse after he told Sky News, “Lucy is a good person and not a racist”. For standing up for his wife, Ray faced calls for his resignation. The monitoring officer at West Northamptonshire council received thirteen anonymous complaints which were referred to a fancy London law firm to investigate when they could easily have been handled internally. It looked a lot like the complaints amounted to an attempt by Labour to try to take down a hugely popular Tory councillor when he was acutely vulnerable in an unbearably bleak situation. With the loss of Lucy’s income, Ray had already sold his car and cancelled any payments he could without touching Holly’s gym classes: anything to preserve some sense of normality while her Mummy was in jail.

The lawyers asked Ray to get some character references for Lucy which they could submit to the court. “I thought because I don’t have direct experience of racism,” he told me, “I’d ask the parents of the children Lucy looked after who do know about racism”.

‘One error of judgment’
I have copies of those references here in front of me and, you know what, it would be hard to find more glowing testimonials.

One woman doctor wrote: “I first met Lucy whilst looking for a childminder for my then one-year-old daughter. Since then I have never had any cause to doubt Lucy’s kindness and warmness. In this time, I have known Lucy to be the kindest, most diligent person who looked after everyone and anyone without any regard for their race or ethnicity. We are originally from Nigeria and moved to the UK for work. Lucy has looked after my daughter as I may expect to do myself as her parent. I also watched her interactions with other people of different races and religions and the care offered was always the same.

“Even my family back home all know Lucy because [of] how fondly I talk about her, in fact I have often described her to them as the kindest British person I know.” Lucy even acted as a formal referee when members of the family applied for British citizenship. “First my daughter last year and even more recently for my husband. She personally drove to my home to drop these letters herself. This is certainly not the behaviour of a racist person. It is my sincerest hope and plea, that one error of judgment is not used to judge an otherwise unblemished record of kindness and openness that Lucy has shown everyone she has come across.”

Another set of parents seconded that view: “We have had the privilege of knowing Lucy for [the] last four years … As we work in the NHS and have a busy schedule, we have been reliant on Lucy’s childminding service. Lucy has consistently demonstrated integrity, honesty and respect in all our interactions, both personally and professionally. She is well-regarded for her strong work ethic, dedication, trustworthiness and sense of responsibility.

“In addition, Lucy is also compassionate and empathetic, always willing to offer assistance to those in need. We came to this country as immigrants working in the NHS and naturalised over the time. We have different faith and belief from Lucy’s, but Lucy has always been respectful towards us and kind to our child. We have never witnessed any racial discrimination or behaviour from her or her lovely family. We can say with full conviction that over the years, Lucy has become a very good friend on whom we can rely and seeing her getting arrested has been extremely painful and shocking for us. We sincerely hope you take these facts into consideration prior to her pre-sentencing.”


No facts of the kind presented in support of Lucy by the immigrant parents who adored her appeared to carry much weight with His Honour Judge Melbourne Inman KC, recorder of Birmingham, when he began his sentencing remarks on October 17 last year.

He said: “This is one of a number of cases that this court has had to deal with arising from civil unrest following the very tragic events in Southport on the 29th July 2024. As everyone is aware some people used that tragedy as an opportunity to sow division and hatred, often using social media, leading to a number of towns and cities being disfigured by mindless and racist violence, intimidation and damage… It is [a] strength of our society that it is both diverse and inclusive. There is always a very small minority of people who will seek an excuse to use violence and disorder causing injury, damage, loss and fear to wholly innocent members of the public and sentences for those who incite racial hatred and disharmony in our society are intended to both punish and deter.”

Ray, who was in the court in his best Armani suit and polished Church’s shoes (“From a mate, I couldn’t afford them otherwise”) froze. “As soon as Judge Inman started talking about diversity and inclusion, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, you don’t know what you’re saying’. If anything happened to those parents, they would quite happily let Lucy keep their kids and look after them like her own. She really, really would.”

Judge Inman directly linked Lucy’s short-lived tweet to “serious disorder in a number of areas of the country where mindless violence was used to cause injury and damage to wholly innocent members of the public and to their properties”. He went on to say her culpability was “clearly a category A case – as both prosecution and your counsel agree, because you intended to incite serious violence”. No, she most certainly did not intend to incite serious violence.

Judge Inman also claimed that Lucy failed to offer words of comfort to the Southport victims although she specifically said in her notorious tweet, “I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure”. There spoke a mother who had lost her own beloved child and was aware, to her infinite sorrow, that you never get over it.

The sentence Lucy Connolly received for a post on social media – 31 months – was greeted with general disbelief in legal circles. “Sickening”, “outrageous”, “a normally reliable judge was wildly out”, are a few of the printable comments. Although Lucy was given 25 per cent off for her guilty plea, the judge paid remarkably little heed to personal and general mitigations: Lucy Connolly was a first-time offender, a person of good character, a mother of a 12-year-old child, a carer for a husband with a serious blood disease; she suffered acute anxiety and was on medication as a result of huge personal trauma.

Lucy Connolly mugshot
Eight days after the Southport stabbing, Lucy was arrested and charged under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986 Credit: Northamptonshire Police
Her sentence is even more mind-boggling when you consider that Ricky Jones, then a Labour councillor (now suspended), was charged with encouraging violent disorder around the same time as Lucy Connolly. Footage of an “anti-fascist” rally went viral showing Cllr Jones spew bile at “disgusting Nazi fascists” saying, “We need to cut their throats and get rid of them”. The former trade union official was remanded in custody until the autumn when he was granted bail and in January his trial was put back until August – a full year since his alleged offence took place. Maybe threats from Left-wing men are viewed as harmless rhetorical devices, unlike tweets from Right-wing women? Hard not to agree with Lucy Connolly: whatever she said, in two-tier Kier’s justice system they were out to hammer her.

“I daren’t tell Lucy they’ve given Ricky Jones bail,” Ray told me this week. “It would kill her, the injustice of it. But Lucy was the perfect message for Starmer after Southport, wasn’t she? If they could do that to a nice, middle-class lady like her, imagine what they could do to you.”

‘It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so horrifying’
After she got that deafening two-and-a-half year jail sentence, Lucy messaged her husband and daughter: “Please don’t live on chicken nuggets and Haribos.” As Mrs Connolly arrived at Peterborough jail – “The most petrified person I’ve ever seen arrive here,” said one prison officer – a doctor, the father of one of the “scrumptious” little girls Lucy looked after, was on his way to the immigration office to submit his citizenship application. Among his documents, there was a reference from the Kindest British Person his family knew. As on so many occasions, Lucy Connolly, poster girl for racism and designated scapegoat, had done everything she could to help. What kind of racist does that?

As Lucy’s tearful mother said to me, “It would be hilarious, Allison, if it wasn’t so horrifying”.

Despite her fears, Lucy Connolly settled in well to prison life. Although there was initially a bit of suspicion – “You’re posh, you’re an MP’s wife” – she says she “met some amazing ladies and girls, they really looked out for me”. Among her fellow jailmates were drug dealers, thieves and murderers like the wonderfully named Patio Sue, who was “remorseful” for burying both her parents in the back garden. When the other inmates questioned Lucy about her crime – “What you in for?” – and she explained it was a post on social media, “they cracked up”. It is the correct reaction, I think.

“Lucy got on great with some of the most difficult prisoners,” says Ray in his Midlands accent with its distinctive soft, hammocky vowels. “There was this strong, scary, very attractive, powerful Jamaican girl and she was really kicking off with the prison officers, and they didn’t know what to do, and Lucy went over, sort of grabbed her and gave her a big cuddle. The officers said, ‘What’s wrong with her?’, and Lucy said, ‘She wants her Mum’.”

The childminder had found her niche as a mother hen to some very damaged and vulnerable young women. “They sat in Lucy’s cell for hours, chatting and setting the world to rights,” Ray says proudly. “Lucy’s asking me to send extra money in ‘cause there’s homeless girls in there and they’ve got no financial support from outside.”

We are talking at the kitchen table in the Connollys’ 1930s semi with bow-fronted windows in a placid Northampton suburb. Harley the dog, who misses Lucy terribly (“he goes nuts running to the front door when I’ve got Lucy on speakerphone from prison”) won’t leave my side. Through the French doors onto the back garden, I can see the Wendy House and other toys that Lucy’s small charges used to play with, mementoes of a happier time. On the shelf behind us, there are two “Free Lucy Connolly” mugs, a gift from a police officer friend whom Ray was worried wouldn’t talk to him after Lucy’s arrest. “He said, don’t worry, Ray, lots of the lads down the stations are right behind you. They think it’s mad what’s happened to Lucy.”

Ray and Lucy Connolly in 2012
Councillor Ray Connolly in 2012 with his wife Lucy, who is currently serving a 31-month sentence for inciting racial hatred Credit: SWNS
On the way in, I admired a pretty Easter wreath of pastel flowers and eggs tied to the front door. Given everything he’s dealing with, I tell Ray I’m amazed he remembered to put that up. “I want things to keep as normal as possible,” he says. “So Holly doesn’t think too much has changed with her Mummy away.” He apologises for the bags of balls and other golf paraphernalia in the entrance porch (Ray is a local golf champ who met his future wife, seventeen years his junior, in the clubhouse). “Lucy won’t be pleased to see all this stuff when she gets home,” he laughs.

At that point, Holly comes into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and there is some good-natured banter with her dad. When I ask, “Is he taking good care of you?” she laughs and says, “I do all the cooking”. Although she looks radiant with health, Holly was recently suspended from school after a deterioration in her behaviour, which is clearly linked to Lucy’s absence. “I do my best,” says Ray. “But she tells me to ‘go away, Dad’. She needs her mum.” Like her mother, Holly is not afraid to speak out when she thinks someone has done something unfair. “But that’s a teacher!” her father protests in vain.

On the phone, Holly’s grandmother, Heather*, tells me her daughter Lucy is very house proud and fastidious. “She got the A levels, but she didn’t want to go to uni because she didn’t like the thought of living in a shared house with 20 messy people. Now she’s living in a prison house with 20 people – she can sort of see the funny side!” Heather says Lucy insisted Ray got out the Emma Bridgewater Christmas crockery, “and she’ll be insisting he gets out the Emma Bridgewater Easter stuff – he’d better!”

Whenever Lucy is “spiralling” because of her anxiety, she just gets fixated on an issue – on something in the world she thinks is unjust, says Heather. “And I’ll say to her, ‘No point getting yourself in a tizz about that, love.’” But injustice has always been a big thing for her eldest daughter, the one who always looked after the waifs and strays at school. “She gets sick and starts shaking, her brain doesn’t work – like when she wrote that awful tweet.” (Heather thinks Lucy’s decision to plead guilty arose out of her anxiety to get back to Holly as quickly as possible. She thought she’d be home by Christmas and that she’d get an “HDC” (home detention curfew), or “Tag” – a home detention curfew, as part of which the prisoner wears an electronic tag). “Because Harry died, she thinks something terrible will happen to Holly, and you can’t tell her different.”

Heather says she felt “ashamed” initially when she found out what her eldest daughter had done – “Can’t defend it, it was horrible what she said, but the punishment is out of all proportion” – but she has since been a staunch maternal ally, badgering the Ministry of Justice to find out why Lucy is being denied the home leave that is granted to prisoners who have committed far graver crimes. “Lucy’s probation officer said she didn’t belong in jail.” She pauses, hearing what she just said. “Imagine my Lucy having a probation officer – it’s surreal.

“We’ve been through worse,” Lucy’s mum says suddenly. And, then, at the thought of her dead grandson, I hear her start to cry.

Back in the Connolly kitchen, Ray is telling me about his wife’s struggle to get the home leave to which she has been entitled since November. The injustice system had not put Lucy through enough by incarcerating her for longer than many paedophiles, or so it would seem.

At Peterborough, Lucy’s probation officer, a man with 18 years experience, told Lucy: “We used to have the best justice system in the world – not any longer.”

The probation officer fought for Lucy, Ray says. In a video call, the external probation officer said they were astonished at the refusal of applications for ROTL – which are supposed to be part of the rehabilitation process. Lucy claims that the deputy governor told the probation officer that there was “no way” Lucy would get let out with a tag “because of press and public perception”.


Lucy lodged a formal complaint about the ROTL refusal. The response from officials was that it was due to her risk assessment not being completed – which was contrary to what Lucy had been led to believe.

But Lucy knew she was entitled to ROTL. “I’ve read every single case about requirements for ROTL,” she writes. “Are you low risk to the community? Yes, I am. Are you the primary carer for your child? Yes. If you are, you can apply for childcare ROTL.”

To add insult to injury, two of Lucy’s fellow prisoners who applied at the same time were granted home detention curfews. Both girls had been presumed unsuitable due to their charges of death by dangerous driving. Both girl had direct victims. “I did not,” Lucy scrawls furiously, “yet my crime was apparently worse than the death of someone”.

In frustration, and feeling the hierarchy at Peterborough were against her, although she loved the prison officers, Lucy requested and got a transfer to an open prison in Staffordshire, where she hoped to find a more sympathetic governor.

Ray thrusts a sheaf of papers at me; they are written in biro in Lucy’s neat hand. Page after tragic, futile page of carefully researched reasons why she should be let out to see her daughter and her husband, who is doing a brilliant job of holding the fort, but is not sleeping from the worry of it all. “I’ve aged ten years,” Ray says, shards of blue eyes flashing whether with defiance or defeat I cannot tell.

‘Exceptional circumstances’
As we sit together, Harley snuffling beside us, I read aloud from one of Lucy’s recent appeals: “You state that your decision is based on my current circumstances and not the circumstances surrounding my offence. However, I feel you have completely missed my point in my original appeal. The situation is putting additional stress on my husband and a detriment to his health. He doesn’t just have a cold he has bone marrow failure… On top of this, since submitting my original appeal my daughter has been suspended from school which is totally out of character. The trauma of her mummy being away from her will affect her for years to come.

“You are not taking any of this into consideration… as the whole system is corrupt. You also state it’s impossible to give definitive guidance on what constitutes ‘exceptional circumstances’ but in the next sentence you write that I do not currently constitute exceptional circumstances. The two contradict one another. You need to give me an example of an exceptional reason. I believe you are just making excuses and your strings are being pulled by someone from outside the prison service. You state the prison has to comply with the court but the LAW actually states I AM ELIGIBLE for Tag but presumed unsuitable. Please explain who is presuming I am unsuitable and for what reason?”

On and on, she goes, like a moth batting furiously against the light, concluding desperately, “While you are playing politics, my 12-year-old is suffering and my husband’s health continues to deteriorate. I will emphasise again, the LAW states I am eligible for Tag”.

So, this is a big question, I say to Ray Connolly, but do you think your wife is a kind of political prisoner?

Ray pats Harley’s head and takes a swallow of tea before replying, “I think they want to use her as an example. Political? Maybe it could be deemed to be that way, but I think they like the idea of Lucy still being in prison just to send out a clear warning to people: ‘You really need to watch what you say because, look! The consequences are going to be quite horrendous for you if you don’t.’


At one level, this is a terrible tragedy for a family that knows tragedy too well, but pull the camera back and we see the wider picture of free speech and where its limits lie. That’s why Lucy’s latest appeal is being funded by the Free Speech Union.

“Why are people more concerned by my political views than by the actual murder of three little girls?” demanded Lucy in one of her final tweets. She was right about the rush to deflection after the heinous Southport massacre. It seems to me the state knows that uncontrolled immigration has unleashed forces which it has no idea how to contain – namely that the suffering of white girls is a secondary consideration compared to avoiding the stirring up of racial hatred.

Diversity is not always a strength, sometimes it’s a scary problem. The sticking-plaster solution is to silence those who express their distress, or turn them into witches.

So successful was the campaign to demonise Lucy Connolly that, until now, it has been taboo to suggest that her imprisonment is appalling. Many who heard about her draconian sentence may have thought, “She must have deserved it”. Well, I hope I have offered some proof that is wrong, and that “Conservative councillor’s racist wife” was a handy label to demonise a good person who made a dreadful mistake.

Lucy is a victim of two-tier justice. What has happened to her shames a free country, I think. It upsets everyone who knows her and loves her, and those who know her do love her.

On May 15, Lucy Connolly’s case will be heard by the Court of Appeal. Pray for her.

Ray’s words come back to me again: “Lucy basically had to admit she was the person she was the opposite of.”

May the real Lucy walk free.

david44

There are many things the Thais have better , work or starve, tough drug and immigration rules. No handouts to the feckless let alone allowing foreign crimis to live in hotels at our expense,

now you're talking!

joe , farange would try and deport your kids

Originally Posted by baldrick

joe , farange would try and deport your kids

why? are they in the country illegally, are they criminals,

do explain

Originally Posted by taxexile

of course not.

Good, I agree her punishment was disproportionate, a fine or non custodial or not sure if still used , when I was young folks were bound over to not breach the peace with no expense to the public purse.
It was similar to a yellow card in football , a warning.

As for illegal arrivals if there was a certainty of a few simple things

Hard labour to pay for their food, no acces to lawyers, embassies, charities,net, phones NHS or dentists.

Lodging in uncomfortable tents far from residential areas, there are plenty of uninhabited isles in the cold North or West Falkland

100% certain to be removed from UK and banned from re entering for life.

Never ever be allowed to get right to remain, vote marry, recourse to public funds or internet access.

The message would soon filter back like it has from Czechia and Poland that the UK is no longer a soft touch, if the Swedes, germans and Dutch want them they are welcome, I very much doubt it.

This need not remove a welcome for regular arivals like Ukrainians or the economy to allow single one year only employment for e.g. IT workers condition must leave at end of visa like the old German gastarbeiter laws.

Instead of paoching the Drs and Nurses and care assistants of poor nations require care homes to transition to locals and pay enough to achieve this. Of course require UK Drs to repay training if they emigrate for higher pay tending to obese Timtamlickers or revalving Kiwis

Originally Posted by Joe 90

It's not about colour.

It's about hundreds of thousands of military aged and mostly Muslim men invading Britain and being treated to luxury hotels,phones and pocket money for sitting on their arses .
Every City and major town has dozens of them on every street corner.
They offer nothing and take everything!
The people of the UK have had enough and the politicians responsible for this madness and destruction of our demographics are going to get battered in the elections and will be out of a job.
Time for a massive change and Reform

Forgot all those usually obese white folk sat on their arses taking money from the state for doing nothing because their doctor gave them a permanent sicknote for "depression".

And ironically a lot of them are the ones that have the time to protest "foreigners taking their jobs".

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

And ironically a lot of them are the ones that have the time to protest "foreigners taking their jobs".

Hole in one, ironic that newcomers without capital. local knowledge, education and language skills can overtake the sloths.

Look how well some have done Normans, Huguenots, Hanoverians, Welsh, Irish, Poles, Indians, Scots even.
You can even become duchess of Sussex if you blow hard.

Originally Posted by david44

Hole in one, ironic that newcomers without capital. local knowledge, education and language skills can overtake the sloths.

Look how well some have done Normans, Huguenots, Hanoverians, Welsh, Irish, Poles, Indians, Scots even.
You can even become duchess of Sussex if you blow hard.

hard for whitey to get jobs these days, DEI regs put whitey right at the back of the queue, behind the melanin rich and the mohammedans, and sometimes they are not even allowed to join the queue.

Major UK police force accused of 'blocking white applicants' to boost diversity
10 April 2025, 12:39


A UK police force has reportedly placed a temporary block on applications from white British candidates in a bid to boost diversity.


West Yorkshire Police (WYP), one of the UK’s largest forces, is allegedly preventing white British candidates from applying as recruits in its constable entry programmes as it looks to attract “under-represented” groups instead.

Those deemed to be from “under-represented” groups can lodge their applications early, the Telegraph reports.

It has led to concerns that the Force is treating some candidates unfairly and using so-called positive discrimination to diversify its staff.


The WYP has rejected these claims and said the policy is to ensure the Force reflects the diverse communities it serves.

However, one former officer told the Telegraph that the policy essentially amounts to a “hidden” plan to target certain groups.

They told the publication that recruits are ranked from “gold to bronze”, sometimes based on their ethnic background.

The whistleblower alleged that non-white candidates were given “gold” while those who chose “white others”, including those from Irish and eastern European backgrounds, were branded “bronze”.

The whistleblower claims to have raised these concerns to the force’s top brass but was told “not to interfere.”

A report seen by the Telegraph read: “This feeds into a general theme where the pipeline for anyone white British is strangled, whilst anyone not white British is ushered through onto the next available stage.”

The WYP admits on its website that, because of the stark lack of ethnic minority officers, it must accept applications “all year round from these under-represented groups” while others have to wait until the “recruitment process is open”.

The website states: “We are currently accepting applications for the two police constable entry programmes (uniform and detective) from people from our under-represented groups... If you are not from one of these groups, please keep checking this page for future recruitment opportunities.”

According to the Telegraph, the Force would back jobs until candidates they deemed under-represented applied.

One lawyer told the publication that while the use of positive discrimination is allowed in the United States, it is prohibited in the UK.

They described delaying job applications until underrepresented applications appeared as falling into a “legal gray area.”

Unnamed officers in the Force added that some jobs were labelled H, meaning hidden, on the recruitment system, meaning only those told about the job through a positive action scheme could apply.

One whistleblower added: “The use of hidden vacancies marked on the internal computer systems was intended to ensure non-white people apply. You can’t see these jobs online. You can only know about them after you’ve been emailed by the Positive Action Team.”

They claim that when they approached management about their concerns, they were told “do what you’re told.”

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “The most recent census found that 23 per cent of people in West Yorkshire identified as being from an ethnic minority background. Our current police officer representation from ethnic minority backgrounds is around nine per cent. To address this under-representation, we use Positive Action under the Equality Act 2010.

“Our use of this was recently reviewed by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services in an Activism and Impartiality inspection, and no issues were identified.

“Positive Action allows people from under-represented groups who express an interest in joining the force to complete an application, which is then held on file until a recruitment window is opened.

“No interviews are held until the window is officially opened to all candidates.”

Major UK police force accused of 'blocking white applicants' to boost diversity - LBC

So you don't think it's a good idea to have police officers who are actually representative of the population rather than just white folk then?

10 million votes lost by Two Tier Kier with his first stroke of his pen.
.



Just like that!

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Forgot all those usually obese white folk sat on their arses taking money from the state for doing nothing because their doctor gave them a permanent sicknote for "depression".

And ironically a lot of them are the ones that have the time to protest "foreigners taking their jobs".

I'm all for getting lazy bastards back to work.

However, the vast majority of hard working people who contribute to society don't have time for protesting as they have to work and pay taxes and bills unlike the far left spongers who are bussed in to protests from here there and everywhere in their leafy suburban utopia were there are no migrant hotels and related crime.

The working class will show their support at the ballot box and about time thanks to the ridiculousness of the two parties that have collectively run the country into the ground over the past two decades.

Hey Engineers and Doctors, Gary Linekers house is thataway>>>

Yeah, it's better for you to stick to pictures.

If you can get them the right way up.

If you seriously think Farage will be next PM then don't concern yourself with leafy suburbs...you live in cloud cuckoo land.

I can finally see how Labour’s abominable misrule will be brought to an end
This tax raising, wealth destroying, opportunity wrecking Government is the worst since the 1970s

30 April 2025 6:55pm BST


Blower 1st May 2025
Credit: Patrick Blower

We are only ten months into the Starmerite era, but this Government is already ready for the scrapheap. Rarely has a political project unravelled so rapidly, so comprehensively and with so little hope of redemption. Labour will stagger on, of course, for what feels like an eternity, inflicting yet more misery on our poor country, but the voters it has betrayed will never forgive it.

Those who can must reward the Labour Party with the mother of all political shellackings at the English local elections on Thursday: this is the most over-rated Government of modern times, a noxious mix of incompetence, nastiness and untrustworthiness. Its second-rate apparatchiks are exacerbating every one of our pathologies, and vandalising the little that still works in Broken Britain: the Government’s reverse Midas touch is something to behold.


Sir Keir Starmer, it turns out, didn’t have a plan. He is failing on almost every metric that matters, from the national debt to illegal immigration. He will dilute Brexit and ruin state education, two great legacies of the Tory years. He is wrong about almost everything, and right about close to nothing.

His Government is soulless, obsessed with process, procedure and legalisms, congenitally unable to give the public the change it so craves. It lacks any kind of vision, other than reflexive cod-egalitarianism, progressivism and big statism, and is unable to comprehend the needs and desires of the aspirational working class and petite bourgeoisie.

It is neither a Government of dreamers, nor of doers, and it cannot execute, lead or enthuse. It can break, but not build; it can redistribute, but not grow; it can regulate, but not liberate. It is cowardly, picking on defenceless private school children, while sucking up to its powerful union paymasters. Oozing negativity, it hides its fundamental vacuousness behind a veil of chippiness, class war and socialistic policies that are accelerating this country’s ruination.

Labour’s social engineers don’t understand that they exist to serve the people, and to help them improve their lives, not to endlessly constrain, challenge, impoverish, bully or brainwash them. The result is a toxic anti-consumerism, an inability to take immigration control seriously, an unserious approach to “petty crime”, an obsession with “resetting” ties with the EU by selling out UK fisheries and regulatory independence, and a scandalous lack of interest in how only the free market can deliver rising living standards.

The Government has already been knocked sideways by the vibe shift on trans issues and women’s rights. Many of its MPs are furious, and cling to a doomed woke ideology. They may soon face further discombobulation over net zero, which is pushing the country towards blackouts and requires urgent moderation, and our membership of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prevents us from controlling our borders. Labour’s electoral coalition is fraying, with its Left flank departing for the Greens or pro-Gaza Independents, its working class electorate to Reform and “centrists” to the Lib Dems.

Yet it is the fury of the apolitical wing of Middle England that should most terrify Starmer. Labour portrayed itself as reassuringly technocratic at the general election, but this was a false prospectus: it stands for the tax-consuming producer class, not for taxpayers and users of public services.

It doesn’t have the first idea how to deliver prosperity or growth, loathes and distrusts capitalism and is presiding over the greatest exodus of wealth creators since the brain drain of the 1970s.

It will prove powerless to reform the public sector, to crack down on crime or to solve the housing crisis. Ministers’ lack of managerial experience have ensured that the Blob has retained control. They are rightly scrapping NHS England, but the rest of that bureaucratic behemoth remains untouched. Throwing yet more non-existent billions at it won’t fix waiting lists or endemic malpractice. The Home Office remains a disaster zone.

Housebuilding and infrastructure may eventually tick up, but not by enough to compensate for extreme levels of immigration or to substantially rectify our deficit of roads, power plants, prisons or water reservoirs.

Like socialists always do, this Labour government is running out of other people’s money. Our public finances feel dangerously Latin American. The budget deficit rose to £151.9 billion in 2024-2025, the kind of shortfall that might be acceptable in wartime or in a pandemic but that is shockingly irresponsible today. Rachel Reeves has failed to tell the public the truth: we cannot afford such large annual increases in spending on benefits and the NHS when the economy is barely growing in per capita terms.

What will happen if the world tips into a real recession, perhaps caused by Trumpian tariff idiocy, or if the UK suddenly needs to spend a lot more on the military? Would Labour need to call in the IMF, as in the 1970s? Taxes are already heading to a record high: what will Reeves target next?

Will she freeze income tax thresholds again, dragging yet more people into higher tax bands? Will she eventually feel obliged to impose a catastrophic wealth tax, chasing away the last billionaires, entrepreneurs and former non-doms?

Arthur Laffer, author of the eponymous curve, was right: above certain levels, higher tax can reduce receipts. It normally takes longer for Left-wing parties to rediscover this eternal truth, so perhaps we should be thankful that Reeves’s gambit unravelled so quickly. She now appears to realise that energy costs inflated by net zero are accelerating the deindustrialisation of Britain, but remains in denial about her job-destroying National Insurance raid and addiction to cheap foreign labour.

There is, of course, the odd policy that Labour has got right, including on Ukraine. To placate Donald Trump, Starmer is increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, paying for it by cutting foreign aid back to 0.3 per cent of GDP, a modest step in the right direction.

Yet his overall record is catastrophically poor: this is the worst Government since the 1970s. If there is any justice in this world, Labour will suffer its greatest ever defeat in this week’s elections.

like many people i expected labour to be useless, but it is the vicious contempt they show to ordinary british people that stands out to me. they truly hate us. the message is you will pay for the destruction of your country and if you dare speak, we will lock you up and throw away the key.

.

Just for context and an equal debate, this is the Far left opinion of Reform and today...

Today is May 1st. International Workers’ Day. A date born from blood, struggle and solidarity. A date the ruling class would rather see erased from memory. And yet here we are, in 2025, casting votes in local council elections while a bunch of hedge fund-backed grifters in Union Jacks are selling snake oil from the side of a white transit van marked Reform UK Ltd.


Let’s be clear here: these are local elections. You're voting for the people who decide whether your local library gets closed or stays open. Whether your mum's care support gets funded or cancelled. Whether your bins get emptied on time or pile up like the refuse of a failed state. Councils are the frontline of public services. Social care, housing, homelessness prevention, safeguarding, schools, environmental health,these are the actual levers of everyday life.


So when Reform UK Ltd show up banging on about immigration, Brexit betrayal, and 'net zero madness', they’re selling you a national manifesto at the wrong bloody election. It’s like applying to be a firefighter and turning up with a CV for reality TV. It’s not just irrelevant. It’s dishonest.


And it’s dangerous.


Reform UK Ltd isn’t a political party in the traditional sense. It’s a Ponzi scheme with a Union Jack logo, where the few at the top enrich themselves while the foot soldiers rage about problems their own leaders helped to create. It is a far-right authoritarian project. And it’s not new. We’ve been here before.


Remember UKIP? The last time the frog-faced snake charmer turned up with a purple rosette and promises of sticking it to the establishment? When UKIP got into local councils, they didn’t 'shake things up.' They barely turned up. In Thanet they failed at basic governance. Budgets weren’t passed. Services collapsed. Councils became political ghost ships haunted by incompetence and infighting. That’s what happens when you vote in rage, not reason.


Reform UK Ltd is UKIP reanimated, but even more cynical. This isn’t a revolt. It’s a racket. And they’re not anti-establishment: they are a pressure valve for the establishment, keeping your anger pointed sideways, never upwards. Never at the profiteers, the landlords, the oil barons, or the tax-dodging corporations. Instead, they’ll have you blaming your neighbour, your colleague, or the bloke down the road for problems cooked up in boardrooms and Westminster dining clubs.


So if you have a vote today it matters. Many of us are politically homeless but we would be far worse under these charlatans.


Please use you hard fought right to vote and please use it wisely.


Use it with the spirit of May Day in your heart. With the knowledge that this system already screws us, and that the likes of Reform UK Ltd want to grease the screws and charge us for the privilege.


Reform UK Ltd would love it if you didn't turn up, because they are highly funded and highly motivated and by not voting you increase their chances of victory. Vote for decency, for services, for solidarity. And if you can’t find a candidate worth voting for, then vote against the ones promising to burn it all down for profit.


This isn't just about councils. It’s about stopping the far-right rot before it spreads.


Because if Reform UK Ltd is the answer, then you're asking the wrong question.


AND DON'T FORGET YOUR PHOTO ID

Meanwhile in Two Tier Starmer land...

Elections are being held in 14 county councils in the UK as well as eight unitary authorities - the outcome of which will give the first true indication of the opinion of how well the government has performed in it's first year of office. Wednesday saw the Prime Minister take to X to threaten waste offenders with a "crushing" threat.
"This is a message to the fly-tippers blighting our towns and villages: For too long, your actions have gone unpunished," he declared. "That ends now. We'll use drones and new tech to identify your vehicle. Then we'll crush it."

Redirect Notice

The hypocritical silly sausage shut most of the tips in the first place, what did he think would happen?
Oh yeah , he doesn't think.

meanwhile again in starmer land ......

kemi on top form.

Common sense shouldn't have to be explained!

The Far left are hellbent on destruction of our society.

Starmers got history for unbelievable fookery..

In 2012 The Times newspaper investigated Rotherham grooming gangs, which led to a major inquiry.

At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, according to a 2014 report written by Prof Alexis Jay.

The report made headlines in the UK and around the world and led to major debates in Parliament.

Similar scandals also occurred in other towns, including Oldham, Oxford, Rochdale and Telford, leading to a national inquiry into child sexual abuse, which was also led by Prof Jay.

The cases sparked investigations into alleged failures to properly address the crimes and support victims.

Was the CPS or Starmer 'complicit'?


The CPS, an independent body, prosecutes criminal cases in England and Wales.

After the police investigate crimes and present their findings, the CPS decides whether to prosecute based on evidence and public interest.

Sir Keir was appointed head of the CPS in 2008 and held the role for five years. He became an MP in 2015.

The CPS was criticised for a decision not to proceed with a prosecution in Rochdale on the basis that it viewed the main victim as "unreliable" following an investigation between August 2008 and August 2009.

That decision was overturned later by Nazir Afzal in 2011 after being appointed by Sir Keir as the CPS chief prosecutor for north-west England.

Speaking to BBC Verify, Mr Afzal said that the view of prosecutors not to proceed to trial at the time was "if the police aren't happy that she will give credible evidence then we're not happy either".

Originally Posted by cyrille

you live in cloud cuckoo land.

Called it!

Starmer has turned Labour into the most hated party in Britain
Runcorn should be a warning to this inept Government that Reform isn’t going anywhere. Yet it wants to double down on its terrible agenda

Not in my lifetime has a political party been so deserving of a beating. By just six votes Labour has suffered a humiliating defeat in Runcorn. Keir Starmer didn’t visit the constituency once during the campaign; now it’s not hard to see why.

The usual caveats apply. There have been many such by-election successes for Liberals, Social Democrats and other smaller parties in the past. By-election results can rarely be extrapolated across the country. With no record to defend, Farage’s party had the advantage.

But this was a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was the party’s 49th-safest seat of the 411 secured in 2024. Keir Starmer’s personal approval rating has plummeted; Labour has slipped behind Reform in polls. This time it could be different.


The Government’s agenda for “change” and its promises for “growth” now lie in tatters. They’ve talked centrist but governed Left: hiking taxes and handing those revenues to public sector workers and Mauritius. They’ve raised the energy bills they pledged to lower, made enemies of farmers and small businesses, prompted an increase in unemployment and triggered bond market turmoil.

Perhaps worst of all, they’ve done nothing to bring down legal migration, whilst small boat crossings have reached record levels. Serco is now incentivising landlords to host those migrants, offering five-year guaranteed rent agreements with the taxpayer footing the bill. Few believe Yvette Cooper wants to bring down the numbers: we’ve just learned that benefits claims by refugee households have surged past £1 billion. Reform, by contrast, are unapologetically promising to leave the ECHR and settle zero illegal migrants here.

Millionaires are doing the rational thing and leaving. Private schools are closing, businesses are dishing out P45s. People are increasingly asking themselves what the point is of studying, striving, risk-taking if their hard work won’t lead to a better life. Young people, one expert recently told a House of Lords Committee, don’t want to get out of bed for less than £40,000. This isn’t just idleness: our welfare and tax system is so dysfunctional that it barely pays to get entry-level jobs any more.


As if on autopilot, a Labour spokesman has responded to the by-election defeat by insisting the Government needs to “move faster”. Like the snake oil salesman whose solution is to double the dose when the patient deteriorates, Starmer will stick doggedly to his high-tax, high-spend agenda. When the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced a £5 billion cut to disability benefits (which will still increase by more than £20 billion by 2030), it prompted a backlash from Labour MPs. They’d prefer Rachel Reeves brought in a wealth tax.

So long as Labour continue to believe that public spending drives growth, that Net Zero is the economic opportunity of the century, that all boat people are genuine asylum seekers, that GDP cannot expand without mass migration, that private enterprise is a predatory target to be shot not a horse pulling the wagon, Britain will continue to decline. However much the Government may utter platitudes about “fixing foundations” and whinge about “14 years of Tory chaos”, voters know who’s really responsible. Four more long years.


THE TELEGRAPH

socialism doing what it always has done, and always will do.

lining their own pockets whilst fucking things up for honest hardworking people and subsidising the lazy, the disruptor, the chancer, the cheat, the feckless and the dishonest.