IN CASE you missed any of our ten most read blogs of last week, here they are for you again – and well worth the read.
John Smith: Tim Davie and a BBC scandal in the making
Adrian Hill: TCW’s Brexit Watch: Johnson can indeed rip up the Withdrawal Agreement
The Conservative Woman: My mission to keep Britain free, by Simon Dolan
Jake Welch: The thin blue line of the Left
Kathy Gyngell: Covid: Has Hancock gone too far this time? You vote!
Harry Dougherty: The Lefties pulling Johnson’s strings
Gary Oliver: The trashing of Tony Abbott
Simon Knight: Speak of the Devil . . .
David Keighley: Is new BBC boss Tim Davie a genuine reformer?
Neil Lyndon: Curb cash flow to the domestic abuse lobby
Conservatives often speak of the need to defend free speech, but in terms so abstract as to make meaningful acts of parliament inconceivable. Edward Smith broke from this trend this week in his thoughtful article ‘Freedom of speech needs legal protection’.
Edward highlights a number of illiberal legislative features which are currently on the books and recommends the government replaces these with ‘a new statutory tort’. This would allow for those who suffer ‘financial or other loss, including loss of reputation’ to take action against the ‘individual or corporate body that has caused or contributed to such loss by actively seeking to restrict their exercise of free speech.’ This, I think, takes us much further than blandly stating ‘facts don’t care about your feelings!’
You can, and should, read Edward’s full article here.
What do they really hate about Tony Abbott? His misogyny? Or is it something else – his manliness? Kathy’s pick of last week’s posts outside the top ten is Dr Kevin Donnelly’s brilliant defence of the former Australian Prime Minister, a man the so-called progressive Left love to hate and who’s been under attack before and after he was appointed a UK trade envoy. His trashing came as little surprise: his social conservative principles and traditional values challenge all the Left’s shibboleths and ‘woke’ virtue.
Donnelly debunks their portrayal of Abbott’s beyond-the-pale chauvinism and racism, and presents a contrasting portrait of this unfairly smeared politician. Would that there were more such. It’s strongly recommended and you can read it here. It deserves much wider dissemination.
Margaret’s pick outside the top ten is by her namesake John Ashworth, ‘Why most of the UK’s fish should be landed in the UK’. John’s dogged defence of Britain’s fishing industry is both admirable and impossible to argue with. Our coastal communities need to make full use of the resource in our waters if they are to come back to life. As he points out, ‘If you are an inland local authority, your land area is 360 degrees around, whereas a coastal authority usually has only 180 degrees, so if you don’t use the resource from the other 180 degrees – the sea – you are going to be disadvantaged.’
