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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-officer-arrested-over-thought-crime-tweet/

A retired special constable was arrested and detained over a social media post warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain, The Telegraph can reveal.

Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham in Kent, was handcuffed at his home by six officers from Kent Police – the force he had served for a decade – after challenging a supporter of pro-Palestinian marches on X.

Police body-worn camera footage captured officers scrutinising the 71-year-old’s collection of books by authors such as Douglas Murray, a Telegraph contributor, and issues of The Spectator, pointing to what they described as “very Brexity things”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-officer-arrested-over-thought-crime-tweet/

A retired special constable was arrested and detained over a social media post warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain, The Telegraph can reveal.

Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham in Kent, was handcuffed at his home by six officers from Kent Police – the force he had served for a decade – after challenging a supporter of pro-Palestinian marches on X.

Police body-worn camera footage captured officers scrutinising the 71-year-old’s collection of books by authors such as Douglas Murray, a Telegraph contributor, and issues of The Spectator, pointing to what they described as “very Brexity things”.

As predicted, the police are enjoying the "conspiracy to cause a public nuisance" law. The difficulty here is not only could it prevent most protests from happening, but even discussion of one can lead to an arrest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/10/police-raid-london-quaker-meeting-house-very-worrying

This important bit of context was buried on the middle of the article:

Youth Demand, which includes young veterans of the Just Stop Oil movement, had posted online it was planning to “shut down London” on a daily basis in April.

There's an interesting question about when discussion becomes conspiracy. For "political" acts, I think the government should tend to err on the side of inaction, but then if people actually commit public order offences, should actually prosecute and jail.

Because I don't like the idea of criminalizing kids sitting around plotting to overthrow capitalism. But I do want to punish them appropriately when they massively inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people and bring economic activity to a halt.

The Supreme Court ruled that a reasonable amount of disruption was to be expected in a democracy. Was an active plan under discussion? What did it involve?

I suppose you can at least defend it on the basis that some protesters have caused a lot of damage. Arresting parents for criticising schools or the CPS charging someone for 'intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam harrassment, alarm or distress' seems much more dubious.

Should burning the Quran be illegal or what about setting fire to the Star of David? I wouldn't be comfortable with people doing it bu the CPS seems to want a blasphemy law.

I don't have an answer to this, because I neither support a blasphemy law, but nor do I think people should act in blasphemous ways. This next point may be silly, but here it is:

You can burn a Quran or a Star of David in private without consequence. That, SFAICS, is just a fact. So the person who does such a thing deliberately in public is going a step beyond that squalid but private act. Why? Can there be any reason except the desire to offend, provoke, incite, inform others just how much you hate and detest something precious to millions of decent people.

Put that way, I wouldn't like it being lawful. But I am uncomfortable banning it too.

Andrew Bridgen
@ABridgen

Russia is the largest country on earth and also has the largest reserves of natural resources - valued at $75 Trillion. Russia only has a population of 140m. NATO members have a population of 973m. Ask yourself why would Russia attack us? Why might some want us to attack Russia?

https://x.com/ABridgen/status/1921153575905825088

Russia has a history of attacking its neighbours and stealing its resources, including people.

Ask yourself, why might Russia want to attack us?

Also who estimated the resources at 75 trillion was it russia, I merely ask as apparently on reason to invade ukraine was they wanted its natural resources...hardly the actions of a country actually sitting on 75 trillions worth

Suspect the 75 number is in rubles rather than $