Shabana Mahmood continues to ban foreigners from travelling to Britain to speak on political issues. Or indeed give musical performances…
Last night Mahmood revoked travel authorisations for leftist podcasters Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker, both of whom were booked to speak at the SXSW London conference on Thursday. They have allegedly been banned for their pro-Palestine views and Uygur’s dismissal of reporting on rape gangs as “Islamophobic”…
Guido is running a rolling tracker of prominent figures banned for speech reasons:
Free speech? I hardly knew ‘er…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”