"This was not a case of we say tomayto, you say tomahto. This was we say tomato, while you cannot say anything these days because of the EU and its rules..."

"... not to mention the repressive government of Great Britain. A citizen of that benighted nation had come to Washington to talk about what he had seen: a fellow named Nigel Farage. 'I have come today to be a klaxon,' he said in his opening remarks. The klaxon appeared in a bright blue suit, telling the story of the Irish comedian Graham Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow airport this week for something he had said on social media. Linehan had been arrested by five armed police officers, he said. While it is perfectly ordinary for police to be armed to the teeth in the United States, 'it is a big deal in the UK,' he said. 'This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online.' American politicians and businesses and all freedom-loving people should say to the British government, "at what point did you become North Korea?"' Farage said."

From "Farage’s rules for free speech: talk about anything but your lunch/The Reform leader defended Democrats’ right to say dreadful things about him — but said some things were better left unsaid" (London Times).

The headline referred to Farage's "discretion" in refusing to say who he needed to leave to have lunch with — clearly, the President.

Also interesting: Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson talked so much, asking questions and interrupting answers, that "Farage asked the chairman if he could go and 'get a cup of coffee or something' until it was his turn to speak."

Here's the video. I love the freeze frame:

"It’s time this government told the police their job is to protect the public, not monitor social media for hurty words."

Said Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, quoted in "Comedian Graham Linehan arrested over trans tweets/The 57-year-old TV writer says he has been ordered not to use the social media platform X while he has been released on bail after being detained by armed police at Heathrow" (London Times).

"Hurty words" is a useful and musical phrase. Badenoch didn't coin it. I'm seeing, from back in March 2024 in the London Times, "Islamophobic tweets just ‘hurty words’, says mayoral candidate/Susan Hall, the Tory hoping to run London, was responding to claims about Sadiq Khan and Londonistan.'" Someone in the comments there writes: "Anyone using the infantile term 'hurty words' calls into question their suitability for high office." Is it infantile or is it a satirical way to accuse those who are complaining about hurtful speech of being big babies?

"The 'Father Ted' writer Graham Linehan has revealed that he was arrested on Monday by 5 armed police officers on arrival at Heathrow airport over 3 tweets about transgender activists...."

The London Times reports.

Linehan told The Times: “I was outraged by what happened. I’d just travelled ten hours from Arizona to voluntarily appear in another court case and they thought they had to send armed police to get me." 

"I was arrested for messages on X when I haven’t even been banned from X. The tweets are not my best work but they are completely harmless. I’m furious about what is happening to women in the UK and I despise trans activists because I think they are homophobic and misogynist.... I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me and banned from speaking online — all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers. To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.”

The Times prints the tweets in question:

"Restaurants will have to tell the government what their customers order under plans drawn up by Labour to tackle Britain’s obesity epidemic...."

"Under the proposals outlined by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, restaurants employing more than 250 workers are expected to report the average number of calories that diners consume. The government will then set targets to 'increase the healthiness of sales.'... Streeting said:'“Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11 billion a year, triple the budget for ambulance services. Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable. The good news is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference. If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day — the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink — obesity would be halved.'"

From "Restaurants to report diners’ calorie counts in obesity drive/The Department of Health says the data will be used to set targets and increase the ‘healthiness of sales’ — but the industry says it was ‘totally blindsided'" (London Times).

"Kate Middleton was effortlessly elegant as she attended Trooping the Colour to honour the King on June 14."

Tatler reports.

An interesting contrast to America, with our "No Kings!" rallies and critique of Trump's military parade and offense that it's happening on his birthday.

Wikipedia: "Trooping the Colour is a ceremonial event performed every year on Horse Guards Parade in London, United Kingdom, by regiments of Household Division, to celebrate the official birthday of the British sovereign, though the event is not necessarily held on that day. It is also known as the Sovereign's Birthday Parade. Similar events are held in other countries of the Commonwealth. In the UK, it is, with the State Opening of Parliament, the biggest event of the ceremonial calendar, and watched by millions on TV and on the streets of London."

"A prolific criminal who threatened to behead Aled Jones and attacked a Bridgerton actress was not deported back to Algeria as he was under 18, the Home Office has said."

"Zacariah Boulares admitted stealing a phone from Genevieve Chenneour, 27, and assaulting another customer when he appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court last month. The Algerian, now 18, has 12 previous convictions relating to 28 offences, magistrates heard, which include stealing a Rolex watch worth £20,000 from a 78-year-old man at Paddington station in May 2023. In July 2023 Boulares threatened to behead Jones, 54, the Songs of Praise presenter, and cut off his arm when he stole his Rolex Daytona watch in Chiswick, west London. He pleaded guilty to robbery and possession of an offensive weapon and was given a 24-month detention and training order. He was released after 14 months...."

I'm reading "Thief who attacked Bridgerton actress was too young to be deported/Zacariah Boulares, who stole from the actress Genevieve Chenneour, has 12 convictions but was not returned to Algeria as he was under 18" in The London Times.

"Dartmoor is the last place in England and Wales where the public have a right to camp on common land, thanks to the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985..."

"... which states: 'The public shall have a right of access to the commons on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation.' Alexander Darwall, a City fund manager and Dartmoor’s sixth-largest landowner, tried to end that right by taking a legal case all the way to the Supreme Court, where he argued that camping was not 'open-air recreation' and the legislation meant that anyone caught sitting down to rest, picnic or paint on common land could also be sued by the landowner for trespass...."

I'm reading "Extend wild camping rights across England, says Dartmoor boss/After the Supreme Court secured the right to backpack camp on Dartmoor, the national park’s chief executive has urged other national parks to be allowed to follow suit" (London Times).

"Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said she would like to see a right to backpack camp in 'all open access country' in England, which is land the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives a public right to walk across, such as mountain, moor, heath, down and common land.... 'We want a right of access to woodlands and watersides, places that were defined as open country in the Countryside Act 1968 but then nothing ever happened with that. Access close to homes would help the government with their target for green spaces within 15 minutes of everyone’s home.'"

ADDED: I was reminded of this passage in Bill Bryson's "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" (commission earned):

"President Donald Trump on Thursday will announce a new trade pact with the United Kingdom, the first of dozens of agreements he is seeking with countries around the world."

"In early April, Trump announced tariffs on more than 70 countries worldwide, but he then implemented a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations before they went into effect.... 'It is an agreement in concept. There’s a lot of details to be worked out,' Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Fox Business. Critics have expressed skepticism of the significance of the 'deals' the White House is attempting to negotiate in strikingly little time. Administration officials have also said not to expect the current 10 percent tariffs on Britain to be removed as part of the trade talks, intensifying doubts about any potential concessions...."

WaPo reports (free-access link). This is the "big news" teased yesterday.

What do we import from the U.K.? — you might wonder. I know I did. According to WaPo, it's mainly "high-end cars" and pharmaceuticals.

Here's the announcement:

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex....

"Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). In a significant defeat for the Scottish government, the court decision will mean that transgender women can no longer sit on public boards in places set aside for women. It could have far wider ramifications by leading to much greater restrictions on the rights of transgender women to use services and spaces reserved for women, and prompt calls for the UK’s laws on gender recognition to be rewritten. The UK government said the ruling 'brings clarity and confidence' for women and those who run hospitals, sports clubs and women’s refuges. A spokesperson said: 'We have always supported the protection of single sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government...."

The Guardian reports.

"The gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, which is backed financially by JK Rowling, said the Equality Act’s definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female...." So, let's check out what Rowling is saying on X:

"I didn’t leave my England behind — I left somebody else’s idea of England."

Said Cyning Meadowcroft, quoted in "Briton builds medieval banqueting hall in rural Wyoming/Cyning Meadowcroft used the historical — and characteristically English — cruck carpentry method to build one of the tallest such structures in the world" (London Times).

Cruck construction dates back at least to the 13th century and refers to the use of naturally curved timber split in two to form an arch which supports the structure....

Meadowcroft, 59, a carpenter by trade, originally from Birmingham, has spent more than two decades erecting Angelcynn Heall west of the state capital Cheyenne for the “preservation of my culture.”

He likened his long-running project to historical resistance by the English to various invading forces: “If you’re locked up, if you’re dead, you haven’t beaten a system. But if you survive and you have something to leave behind, you’ve beaten it.”...

"US Vice President JD Vance was told to 'wind his neck in' today after branding Britain 'some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.'"

That's the first line of an article in The Sun called "VANCE SHAME/Fury as Trump’s No2 JD Vance mocks UK for ‘not fighting a war in 30 years’ – forgetting Afghanistan & Iraq."

That calls our attention to something Vance said on Fox News: "If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine. That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years."

I don't know if that "random" refers to the UK, but apparently some people in the UK are hearing it that way. And the UK is hardly a random country. But "random" is bandied about humorously these days. In America. Do the Brits know that?

Insulting him back, the random Brit who is the source of this quote doesn't seem to know that Americans don't say "wind his neck in." The effort at an insult strikes me as funny because, not being used to the phrase, I'm forced to try to picture it concretely. 

The source of the quote is a Former Veterans Minister who served in Afghanistan, and the full quote is: "Vance needs to wind his neck in. Show a bit of respect and stop making yourself look so unpleasant."

Vance looks especially unpleasant in my mental image, where he has an extremely long and thin neck attached to a fishing reel.

"This is civilization ending philosophy where really bad ideas are being smuggled in under the guise of civil rights...."

"So they take a very distorted view of what black is. Black is, you listen to this type of music, you dress in this way, you study these courses, you have these political views, and we have created what a black person is. And if you don't fit into that box, it doesn't, you are not real. This is destroying the identities of hundreds of millions of people who have different ethnicities. They're all black, different cultures, different languages.... We did so much to get rid of stereotypes and now the stereotypes are coming back except now they're coming back as a norm to be enforced rather than something to be laughed at.... So I hate critical race theory...."

Said Kemi Badenoch, in the new episode of the Bari Weiss "Honestly" podcast, "Is Kemi Badenoch the Next Margaret Thatcher?" (transcript and audio here).

Badenoch, who grew up in Nigeria, now leads the Conservative Party in the U.K.

Despite being called a “race traitor” for opposing DEI, UK Conservative Party leader @KemiBadenoch is not backing down.

“These are civilization-ending bad ideas.”

“It is not real equality. It is not even promoting the well-being of minorities. It is a way for the left to… pic.twitter.com/C83dVySxc3

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) December 12, 2024

"Britain is to ban indefinitely the use of puberty blockers for young people under 18 with gender dysphoria, except in clinical trials..."

"... the government said on Wednesday, making permanent a set of temporary restrictions put in place earlier this year.... The country’s National Health Service stopped the routine prescription of puberty blocker treatments to anyone under 18 as treatment for gender dysphoria following a landmark review into gender identity services undertaken by Hilary Cass, one of the country’s top pediatricians. Her report, published in April, concluded that gender medicine was operating on 'shaky foundations' when it came to the evidence for some medical treatments, including prescribing hormones to pause puberty or to change physical characteristics.... Young people who already had a valid prescription for puberty blockers before a certain date this year — depending on where they live — will be able to continue to receive them...."

From "U.K. Bans Puberty Blockers for Teens Indefinitely/A freeze placed this year on their use to treat gender dysphoria will remain in place for young people under 18, except in clinical trials, Britain’s government said" (NYT).

"Children as young as 12 are being arrested on suspicion of extremism offences, Britain’s most senior counterterrorism police officer has said."

"Matt Jukes, assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan Police, said there was a 'conveyor belt leading children towards extremism' being driven by tech companies 'making vast amounts of money' from them.... [G]overnment figures revealed that the largest group of people referred to the government’s counterextremism programme Prevent were children aged 11 to 15, who made up 2,729 referrals — 40 per cent...."

The London Times reports.

"They’re all infesting the Cotswolds. F*** them. They’re not resilient … They had every advantage of state power. They had the high ground."

"And guess what, we broke them and now they’re whining like little children...."

Said Steve Bannon, from his house in Arizona, referring to Ellen DeGeneres and others who are relocated, out of fear of the Trump administration.

Quoted by Louise Callaghan in "Steve Bannon: Maga can rule for 50 years and Farage will be PM/For the firebrand Trump guru, beating ‘whining’ Democrats was just the beginning — at home and abroad" (London Times).

“We are so close,” he tells me. “We just need to see this through.” Trump may have won the presidency, but to enact the sweeping changes he wants to make — chief among them destroying the administrative state and deporting millions of undocumented migrants — he needs to move fast, with the support of his party.

"We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests."

This is actually happening https://t.co/50NdFdlZfi

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 8, 2024

"We said 'never again.' The UK was a safe haven. Now..."

"... after the biggest massacre of Jews since the holocaust, British Jewish children are being advised to hide their identities as they walk to school, for their own safety. There should be mass outrage that this is necessary."

Writes J.K. Rowling, at "X," showing us this letter to the editor of the London Times from London resident Dr Sarah Nachshen:

Sir, On advice from her school our teenage daughter has gone off without her blazer this morning. Her male classmates have been advised to cover their skullcaps with baseball caps. On her pre-school dawn run yesterday she ran past the broken glass of a kosher café’s windows and a fresh anti-Israel slogan painted on a bridge. All my grandparents were Holocaust survivors who found safe haven, and built new lives, in the UK, so of course I am twitching with latent anxiety and the creeping dangers of the masses not speaking out against terrorism. I sincerely hope Rishi Sunak honours his pledge to stand with Israel and protect British Jews. 

"The wider public do have the power of citizen’s arrest... And, where it’s safe to do so... I would encourage that to be used" — on shoplifters!

"Because if you do just let people walk in, take stuff and walk out without proper challenge, including potentially a physical challenge, then again it will just escalate. While I want the faster and better police response, the police can’t be everywhere all the time."

Said Chris Philp, the policing minister, quoted by Giles Coren, in "Oi! Drop that strimmer or I’ll use my Taser/We part-time coppers who’ve answered the government’s call to arms have a lot more than shoplifters to worry about" (London Times).

Here's the requisite scene from "The Andy Griffith Show." I've got to get that out of the way first. Now, on to Coren's commentary on Philp's amazing advice:

"The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand...."

The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand before he’s been through due legal process over the allegations against him is a very disturbing Orwellian development. pic.twitter.com/6hWPDOF8V3

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 21, 2023

When the accused hires a lawyer, "It is a power game, because usually the victim has no representation, and I think it is completely unacceptable and unfair."

According to Prof Sir Steve West, former vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and president of Universities UK, quoted in "'It’s a power game': students accused in university rape hearings call in lawyers/Parents of young men facing conduct panels over assaults are raising the stakes by bringing barristers to them, academics say" (The Guardian).

Smita Jamdar, a partner at the law firm Shakespeare Martineau who advises universities on sexual assault hearings, said: “There are increasing numbers of students choosing to bring cases of sexual misconduct of all sorts to their university rather than the police, and increasing numbers of very serious allegations.”...

Jamdar said institutions often brought her firm in because an accused student had hired a lawyer and the university needed support. “Everyone ends up arguing over legal principles that are utterly bamboozling to most student conduct panels,” she said....