'Welcome to Britain’s Banana Republic – where justice is a joke and free speech is dead' - says Toby Neal

Case study one: A single alleged racist comment years ago, but nobody knows exactly when, or even what year, and we're not allowed to know what the comment was and so make our own judgment on how bad it was, and it may or may not have been made as it is not remembered by the accused who denies in any event that he would have said it, and in fact says he does not believe it ever happened.

An accuser, but we are not allowed to know who they are as they are protected by the cloak of anonymity, making it impossible objectively to judge their credibility, character, or potential motivation.

Finding: guilty. Punishment: loss of job, loss of livelihood, pubic humiliation and condemnation.

John Torode is an Australian, and I have read that Australians have a good sense of humour. But this Aussie isn't laughing now.

Case study two: A non-native tree ruining historic views of Hadrian's Wall, its spreading roots threatening that cherished part of England's heritage, is cut down in a night-time jape by two men. Sentence: four years and three months. You can get less than that for shouting at a police dog.

Case study three: A drunken 21-year-old student makes immature and moronic tweets in the dead of night and despite having no previous convictions is hit with an immediate 56-day jail sentence.

Years ago, in an entirely different context, Ian Hislop said: "If that's justice, I'm a banana."

Ian Hislop is not actually a banana, but his words were prophetic in a sort of way as gradually, bit by bit, Britain has moved towards becoming a judicial banana republic in which Judge Jeffreys and Joseph McCarthy would have felt at home.

In 2012 members of a Russian feminist art collective called Pussy Riot stormed Moscow's largest Orthodox church and performed a 40-second "Punk Prayer" criticising Vladimir Putin.

There was international outrage and condemnation as they were dragged before the courts charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." It was seen as underlining the injustice, repression, and suppression of human rights and freedoms in Putin's dictatorial police state regime.

There was shock when they were jailed for two years.

Yet here's the irony. If they had done it in self-styled enlightened, liberal, and tolerant Britain they would have faced seven years in prison.

Parliament, led by Sir Keir Starmer, who likes to remind us that he was a former Director of Public Prosecutions, is thinking up more and more ways to get more and more of us arrested.

Protesters, the heretics, the awkward squad, and the plain eccentric, are in the firing line. And there is a worrying trend for politicians to suggest that police prosecute political opponents. It was seen particularly during Covid, both by the Tories and Labour, seeking to use the police as agents for party political advantage. 

It makes me laugh when you hear politicians say that they "want a debate" on this, that, or the other, and then when somebody challenges their world view they immediately move to shut them down, contradict or cancel them.They don't really want a debate. They want a monologue. They want ideological protected spaces.

When Elon Musk had a go at Britain a few weeks ago the politicians on discussion shows weren't interested in debating what he had said. They huffed that it shouldn't be allowed, and ways had to be found to shut him up.

But once you have curtailed freedom of speech, all the rest is propaganda.

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A schoolgirl attended her school's culture day in a Union Jack dress. There's always some troublemaker who ruins it for others, isn't there?

The Union Jack, as a past-shamer told a radio show the other day, is associated with slavery, colonialism, and exploitation, while there are some British things to be proud of, like the NHS. 

That makes a good case for the NHS flag to become the national flag. Functionally bankrupt, and described as broken even by the person running it, it would sum up modern Britain perfectly. 

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If children of 16 are to be allowed to vote, will they also be allowed to become MPs, and if not, why not?