Tag: wrongthink

Officials Are Keeping A LIST Of Brits Who Question Government Policy

The British state is compiling a list of people who criticise its own counter-terror programme. Ordinary X and Reddit users who questioned Prevent training, flagged a one-sided focus on the “far Right,” or simply criticised it have had their posts logged, stored and “investigated” by a Home Office-linked unit most of them have never heard of.

Officials spent more than a year trying to keep that database secret. They only released it after an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The public was never told their feeds were being trawled.

The Standards and Compliance Unit, or StaCU, was set up in February 2024 as an “opaque” body to handle complaints about Prevent, the safeguarding scheme sold as a way to stop people becoming terrorists. Documents obtained by The Metro and released by Rights & Security International show StaCU did more than wait for formal complaints. 

Between March 2024 and February 2025 it made 77 “observations” of critical online comments, most of them from X, with others from Reddit and even articles in the Guardian and the Telegraph.

Jacob Smith, Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader at Rights & Security International, fought for a year to force the Home Office to publish the material. 

“It is shocking that the government has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent – and then storing that information,” he said. “You should be allowed to criticise government policy without being put on a list.”

He added: “People should be able to express their views on social media without that being catalogued in government databases.” 

Many of those logged, he said, had posted without thinking “that the government might be looking at their feed and taking that data. It is in an almost private setting.” 

His conclusion was blunt: “It’s a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.”

A large share of the logged posts accused Prevent training of treating the “far Right” as the main threat while skating over Islamist extremism. 

One X user was recorded after calling the training “complete bullshit.” They wrote: “Anyone’s who done the prevent training knows it only talks about the far Right. Islam extremism isn’t even mentioned.”

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How Many Ministries Of Truth Does One Country Need

How many Ministries of Truth does one country need? With Andy Burnham announcing yet another, Prof Michael Rainsborough points out that Britain’s “narratives of decline” arise because the country is, in fact, declining…

In previous essays I have sought to describe the political condition into which Britain and other Western democracies have been drifting by offering various analogies.

At first, I tried being serious. My initial forays drew comparisons with the post-totalitarian societies of late communist Eastern Europe, where the widening distance between official propaganda and observable reality produced an ever-greater institutional effort to enforce the official world view. Later essays pursued the analogy more directly, asking whether Britain was becoming increasingly Sovietised, with some of the same characteristics of a political order in severe decline becoming recognisable. With the supply of serious comparisons running low, and the ironies apparently passing unnoticed, there seemed little left to do except laugh.

Once the absurdities become difficult to describe with a straight face, parody is the logical next step. The difficulty now has been making the exaggeration last until publication. Institutions and bureaucratic inventions for comic effect have acquired real-world counterparts before the joke has had time to land.

WISDOM escapes into the wild

A few weeks back my satirical turn took the form of ‘The Spy Who Came in From the Consensus‘, a John le Carré spoof in which the machinery of the contemporary British state deployed its formidable powers of information gathering to confirm what it already believed. At the centre of the story was WISDOM, the Whole-of-Institution Strategic Data and Outcomes Management system. Created to defend Britain against foreign disinformation, it soon graduated to monitoring “harmful narratives”, “problematic nostalgia”, declining trust and negative sentiment about immigration. A genuine photograph of migrants arriving on a beach was flagged for “decontextualised visual framing”. Requests for original sources and factual corrections became possible indicators of hostile interference.

Having begun by investigating Russia, China and Iran, WISDOM eventually discovered that the most troublesome source of misinformation about Britain was British people’s stubborn attachment to feeling British. WISDOM’s final diagnosis of the country’s deteriorating social cohesion was commendably concise: “The problem isn’t the problem, the problem is the people noticing the problem.“

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham stood before the United Nations and announced the creation of a National Centre for Information Defence. Barely had WISDOM escaped onto the page before reality began catching up with the satire.

According to Burnham, NCID will detect, attribute and disrupt hostile-state information attacks. He cited Russian bots masquerading as British citizens, fake websites, fabricated reports, forged newspaper branding and covert interference. Most insidious of all, naturally, was the amplification of “far Right narratives“. Russia, Burnham said, was creating a narrative of British decline. Britain, he claimed, had surrendered too much ground to those promoting such an account.

Burnham insisted that the “negative” and “corrosive” narrative about life in Britain “bears no resemblance to reality“. A few moments later in the very same speech, Burnham described people struggling with the “cost of living”, lives that were “not improving”, young people outside employment, education or training, widening inequality and a society vulnerable to division. Making life more affordable, he then announced, would lie at the heart of a new “10-year plan” for Britain.

The narrative of decline therefore bears no resemblance to reality, although reality apparently requires a 10-year plan.

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Does Britain Have a Free Speech Problem?

When Keir Starmer visited the White House in February 2025, J.D. Vance used the occasion to raise what he called “infringements on free speech” in Britain. Our then Prime Minister, sitting a few feet away in the Oval Office, was having none of it. “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom,” he said, “and it will last for a very, very long time.” He added that he was “very proud of our history there”.

Was Sir Keir right to dismiss those concerns? I want to answer that question not with anecdotes, of which I have a great many, but with numbers.

Arrests, charges and convictions

Let’s start with a new report from Big Brother Watch, entitled Britain’s Free Speech Problem. Its headline finding is that between January 1st 2021 and December 31st 2025, 62,199 people were arrested in the UK on suspicion of committing just three communications offences. These are section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which criminalises sending a “grossly offensive” message over a public electronic network; section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988; and section 179 of the Online Safety Act 2023, the new “false communications” offence.

That’s a shocking figure, but it’s an underestimate. Several police forces didn’t respond to Big Brother Watch’s Freedom of Information requests, including Police Scotland. Big Brother Watch estimates the true figure is 73,023. So on a conservative estimate, the police are arresting an average of 34 people a day for things they’ve said, the vast majority online, and the true figure is closer to 40 a day. Russia, incidentally, is thought to arrest around 400 people a year for similar offences.

Of those 62,199 people, 18,520 were charged and 12,292 were convicted. That’s more than 12,000 people with criminal records for speech offences in five years. And that number is likely to go up if the proposals to curtail the right to trial by jury, first put forward by David Lammy when he was Justice Secretary, become law. Research by the Free Speech Union found that in the year to June 2025, 14% of people tried for speech offences in a magistrates’ court were acquitted, compared with 33% in the Crown Court, where the case was heard by a jury. Twelve ordinary men and women, it turns out, are less likely than a district judge to conclude that an intemperate tweet merits a criminal conviction. Leave the decision to them and more people will be convicted.

Is it getting worse?

But is the number of people being arrested for speech offences actually increasing? Yes, it is, as a similar piece of research by the Times established last year. It FoI’d every police force in England and Wales and asked how many arrests they’d made relating to just two of those three offences: section 127 of the Communications Act and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act.

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FL Democrat Senate Candidate Angie Nixon: Stopping Woke Is a ‘Racist Dog Whistle’

“Stop woke” is a “racist dog whistle,” Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Angie Nixon — who is hoping to be the next Senator in the Sunshine State — said in a 2023 interview.

“And now he has this stop woke agenda that he is going around the country talking about when we know that’s nothing more than a racist dog whistle,” she said during an interview on One Take Live, referencing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s slogan that Florida is where the leftist “woke” agenda goes to die.

“Stop woke… That is just a term that is devaluing black people,” she said, asserting that Republicans actually want black people to die and use wokeness as a cover.

“We know that you just want to remove woke and replace it with black people, and look, if Florida is where woke or black people go to die, that’s evident by what just took place on Saturday,” she continued.

This is far from the only hysterical accusation Nixon has made against Republicans, once stating that she can not work across the aisle with them because they are “literally trying to kill us.”

“And folks often say, like, ‘Oh, are you going to be able to work across the aisle with the Republicans?’ They are not trying to work across the aisle. They are literally trying to kill us, and they are doing it on camera,” Nixon said during an interview clip shared by RNC Research.

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UK’s Burnham Moves Toward Authoritarian Rule, and That Means Trouble for the U.S.

Here we go again: leftists have shown us again and again that they hate dissent and debate, which are the foundations of any free society. Now the U.K. is heading decisively toward authoritarianism as its crazy-left prime minister, Andy Burnham, has just announced that he plans to establish a “National Centre for Information Defence” in order to fight — you guessed it — “disinformation.”

The “National Centre for Information Defence“ is a canny name. It beats Old Joe Biden’s abortive “Disinformation Governance Board” in couching the whole totalitarian move as “defense” (as we spell it in the land of the free and the home of the brave) rather than “governance.” This is intended to give Burnham’s hapless citizenry the impression that what’s being done to them is not more control from the ruling elites, but protection from the evil machinations of deceivers.

Yeah, Andy, the Mafia offered protection, too. Anyway, GB News reported Wednesday that Burnham, “the Prime Minister, addressing the United Nations, announced the centre to improve ‘community cohesion’ and prevent a ‘distorted and untrue narrative about Britain.’” As a result, Burnham “ordered security chiefs to set up the quango, which will detect, attribute and disrupt ‘hostile information attacks’ and ‘deepfakes’ which hurt British interests.”

A “quango” is an organization that receives government financing but is ostensibly an independent group. And we all know that the far-left British government will stay fastidiously out of the affairs of an organization that is charged with stamping out “hostile information attacks” that supposedly “hurt British interests,” now, don’t we?

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Florida AG James Uthmeier: Sarasota Teacher ‘Tried to Cancel’ Eighth Grader for His Conservative Views

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Sarasota teacher Liz Ballard “harassed, disparaged, and deliberately tried to cancel an eighth-grade student for his conservative views.” The AG blasted the teacher in a letter to the Satasota school district.

“I sent a letter to Sarasota Schools after a Pine View teacher allegedly labeled an 8th grader a ‘misogynist’ based on his political affiliation, ignored his parents’ wishes, and disparaged the child’s father,” Uthmeier wrote in a Monday X post, sharing the letter he sent.

“If true, she should be fired and never teach in Florida again,” the Florida Attorney General added.

Ballard, who teaches history at Pine View School in Osprey, Florida, is accused of singling out the boy as the “conservative perspective” in her classroom and later labeling him a “misogynist” — a slur she went on to spread around the school, Uthmeier said in his letter.

Moreover, the teacher engaged in this behavior despite the boy previously informing her that “his parents expressly forbid him to take part” in her debates, and even “openly questioned the suitability and influence of the student’s father,” the Florida AG added.

Uthmeier also noted that “multiple HR investigations initiated by multiple parents” against the teacher have nonetheless resulted in her continuing to teach at Pine View School.

“Ballard singled out this student and, in defiance of his parents’ express instructions, pressured him to defend political positions on demand in front of his class-mates. She made disparaging remarks about his father,” he said.

“By facilitating the spread of a damaging label throughout the school, she engaged in the reputational destruction of a child,” Uthmeier added, asserting that “Ballard’s deliberate bullying and harassment” puts her in violation of “Florida law, School Board policy, and at least six ethical principles.”

In his letter to Superintendent Terry Connor and School Board of Sarasota County members, the Florida Attorney General reminded them that “Florida law prohibits bullying or harassment of any student at any public K-12 educational institution.”

“Based on the foregoing allegations, if true, Ms. Ballard should be dismissed and her educator certificate revoked,” Uthmeier wrote, before calling on the superintendent and school board to inform his office “of the actions the district has taken, or will take” to address the matter by October 1, 2026.

On Tuesday, the superintendent acknowledged having received the letter, adding that members of the school board “take the concerns seriously and will respond to the Attorney General’s Office,” according to a report by WFLA.

“Every student deserves a classroom where they feel safe, respected, and free to learn,” Connor said. “No student should face harassment, humiliation, or retaliation because of their beliefs or their family’s views.”

“Respect for students and parents is fundamental to the trust our community places in our schools,” the superintendent continued, adding that “the allegations in the letter warrant careful attention.”

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Dem Senator Wants To Regulate The Internet To Prevent Another Trump From Happening

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called for government regulation of the internet as part of a broader effort to reduce loneliness and powerlessness among Americans, two conditions he argues push voters toward leaders like President Donald Trump. Murphy made the remarks on September 21 during an appearance on the I’ve Had It podcast, where he discussed his book, Crisis of the Common Good.

Murphy told the podcast hosts that isolation and helplessness define the country right now. “Those are the two things I think Americans are going through right now… They don’t feel powerful at all, and they feel lonely,” he said.

His remedy for loneliness coincidentally becomes an excuse to grow the government even further.

“And so, government should build a set of rules in which people feel more powerful – that’s why the minimum wage is so important – and people feel so more connected,” Murphy said.

He added, “That’s why, you know, rebuilding healthy institutions in your town should be a project that government is involved in.”

Then he got to the internet and revealed his true objective. “Regulating the internet so that you’re spending less time alone on Instagram should be an important government project,” Murphy said. And if Americans feel more powerful and less alone, Murphy argued, “they are going to be less likely to fall for a bullshit demagogue like Donald Trump.”

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‘MAGA? Nope’: Kitten adoption agency won’t place homeless cats with conservatives

A New York cat adoption agency’s policy not to approve any placements to “MAGA” people who may want to help is so extreme that the traditionally leftist PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is calling the organization out.

Not the Bee reported on a Facebook post by Itty Bitty City Kitties, a nonprofit in Rockaway Beach that specializes in neonatal kittens and feral cat welfare.

Stated the post: “MAGA? Nope. Conservative? Nope. ‘I’m not political’? Nice loophole. Still nope.”

Noted Not the Bee: “Discriminating against people based on who they vote for is actually super illegal. But this is New York, so they can get away with it as long as they’re being hateful against Republicans.”

Another online statement from the adoption group said, “Important Adoption Policy Update: No. F**king. MAGA.”

Yet another post explained the policy further, saying, “If your politics involve racism, bigotry, dehumanizing immigrants, or cheering on cruelty toward vulnerable people, please kindly f**k right off.”

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Burnham Announces ‘Ministry of Truth’ to ‘Defend Democracy’ From ‘Russia-Amplified Far-Right Narratives’

The belief that the United Kingdom is experiencing decline, the view that there are negative elements to modern life, and the feeling of unrest after terror attacks are among “far-right narratives” pushed by Russian intelligence that bear “no resemblance to reality,” Prime Minister Andy Burnham declared as he announced plans for a new National Centre for Information Defence.

The UK has more experience than most Western countries in being attacked with information warfare and will establish a new government body to disrupt “hostile state information attacks”, Andy Burnham said during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, while tipping that this model could be exported to other countries to protect them from unwelcome information as well.

Though the wide-ranging speech touched on a series of issues, the lion’s share of the new British Prime Minister’s speaking time was spent explaining how narratives contrary to his view of modern Britain not only bear “no resemblance to reality”, but are engineered by foreign powers to undermine national security.

The country’s deeper experience in this sort of warfare goes back ten years, Burnham said — not naming the defeat of progressive sentiment in the Brexit referendum ten years ago in 2016, but tacitly implying this was the first battle in this shadow war against information — stating British elections had also been targeted by Russia.

Because there is “no national security” without a cohesive society to build it on, Burnham said the level of threat he intended to fight justified extraordinary reach for this new information control body, stating:

The Kremlin spends about £1.3 billion each year on manipulating information. We’re talking about an insidious campaign that reaches into people’s homes and twists what they feel about their own country and community, creating a narrative of decline, stoking division, and sowing despair… we are going to help our people to strengthen their resilience, because faced with their information warfare, security starts in every home.

The variety of opinions being forced on unsuspecting Britons by Russia was, the Prime Minister said, considerable, and conveniently aligns reasonably neatly with practically everything his Labour Party stands against.

This “industrial-scale assault by hostile actors on the information environment in the UK” by “Russian agencies” includes spreading disinformation to prey on ordinary people’s fears, he said, and amplifying “far-right narratives” by stoking “tensions and unrest in the wake of horrific events”, terror attacks.

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Letitia James Seized Nuns’ $19 Million and STILL Won’t Release It So They Can Care for Aging Members

For 123 years, the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence devoted their time and money to help young women in Manhattan through the Jeanne D’Arc Residence.

Jeanne d’Arc Residence is dedicated to creating a welcoming and caring environment for women seeking safe, affordable and temporary housing in New York City. Through the ministry provided at Jeanne d’Arc Residence, the Sisters of Divine Providence are committed to ensuring a Christian environment which serves women of all nationalities, cultures and religions. In this setting, the good news of Jesus Christ is lived and proclaimed in the spirit of Providence.”

The nuns, whose order is based in Kentucky, have seen their number shrink and their population age.  The cost of continuing to run the residence has become too much to bear as they face caring for their own elderly sisters.

The sisters sold the property to John Catsimidis for $22.5 million. Because the property is part of a registered charitable organization, Letitia James’ office must, and did, approve the sale.

But devoting over a century to vulnerable women in the city is not enough for James.  Her office seized the proceeds of the sale and, for two years, has refused to release it to them.

James’ reason? She doesn’t like what the nuns will do with their money.

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