The Queen’s Speech and the blanket bans
The Lib-Con government has tidied up the law on our use of public spaces... by making it even more illiberal than before.
A twenty-first
century folk devil
In Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust, Frank Furedi adroitly uses the sociological literature around moral panics to draw out the deeper meaning of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
An unspoken war on the Common Law
ESSAY England’s rights-respecting Common Law is being shunted aside by new forms of arbitrary, inquisitorial power. It’s time for a fightback.
Why everyday life is tied up in red tape
The proliferation of rules and regulations on everything from leafleting to looking after kids exposes how much the state distrusts us.
There ain’t no harm in hate speech
The demand to criminalise hate speech is essentially a demand to criminalise people who haven't actually done anything wrong.
Must-reads from the past week
The unfree streets of London
A shocking new Google Map shows the bits of London where you can become a criminal without even realising it.
‘Freedom is not
delivered, but won’
Josie Appleton answers your questions on the challenges facing the liberty movement in modern Britain.
These petty laws are an insult to the public
Yes, let’s get rid of Britain’s mad ban on using ‘insulting’ words. But don’t ignore the rest of the state’s criminalisation of everyday behaviour.
Are tree surgeons really a threat to children?
For all the Lib-Cons’ attempts to rein in Britain’s crazy vetting regime, still millions of adults are being treated as potential paedophiles.
Policing the innocent, ignoring the riotous
ASBOs, CCTV, dispersal zones and a whole host of other petty powers did nothing to prevent the looting.