I’ve often made jokes about modern Britain becoming more like its Nineteen Eighty Four version, to the extent of using that image meme above. And I’ve continued to do even in the wake of ever-more serious things like:

I should note that there have also been prison sentences handed down for people who actually made inciting statements on social media – things like encouraging people to burn down hotels where immigrants were being housed. I don’t have a problem with that; if you’d stood on a street a hundred years ago saying such things or handing out flyers with such statements you could expect to be arrested and thrown in prison.

But many of these cases – most of them in fact – are over language that is not inciting crime but merely saying things that are “offensive”. And while it started with “racists” who aren’t keen on Islamists preaching in mosques, it’s now moved to “terfs” and a movable feast of minority groups demanding that they be protected from whatever they define as “hate speech”.

Which is all bad enough, but now it’s being seen that such people are actually being treated worse than actual criminals, including even child pornographers.

I’m now past the point where I can laugh at this. People like Judge Tom Bayliss need to be fired from their jobs. At a minimum I’d like to see him confronted about this on TV in an interview.

Also understand that Labour and the Greens will push for such laws here in New Zealand in future, and that the NZ Police are already being trained up for it.

Here’s the moment when Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested.