577 academics have now signed an open letter to Bridget Phillipson calling on the education secretary to restore the Tories’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. The act strengthened impositions on universities to support free speech on their premises and would introduce a complaints scheme to resolve issues. Naturally Labour said this would “enable hate speech” and immediately scrapped it…
Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson, Kathleen Stock and others have signed. The letter spells out that the act won’t be “burdensome” as Labour claims because government analysis has compliance cost at a tiny £4.7 million and that the complaints scheme would keep cases out of court. Seeing as the UK ranks so terribly on the Academic Freedom Index more protections might be a good idea…
Labour’s response is indignant: “We make no apology for pausing the Tories’ hate speech charter, which would have allowed antisemites and holocaust deniers free rein on campuses.” As far as competition goes UCL is leading on signers with 38, followed by Oxford on 36 and Cambridge on 21. Academics can sign here…
Read the full letter below:
Labour has been blasted over the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s decision to axe the Free Speech Act – a bill that encourages debate and free expression in our increasingly left-wing universities. Today Phillipson announced:
“The Free Speech Act introduced last year is not fit for purpose and risked imposing serious burdens on our world class universities. This legislation could expose students to harm and appalling hate speech on campuses. That is why I have quickly ordered this legislation to be stopped.”
The Free Speech Union were quick to slam the “shocking” plans, with general secretary Toby Young promising they will pursue a judicial review if the cross-party approved law is blocked. Young nailed it:
“The government [is]…effectively declaring war on free speech…For all Sir Keir Starmer’s talk about human rights, he clearly doesn’t care about the most important human right of all, which is the right to free speech.”
Unsurprisingly, the National Union of Students welcomed repealing what they call the “dangerous ‘culture wars legislation’.” Every joke is a tiny revolution…
Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was asked this morning on GB News how many billions Labour’s Net Zero plan would cost. She refused to answer the question, instead spinning the costly plan:
“The answer is how we move to a position of decarbonising our economy, creating more jobs, is through private investment, not just public money. So you can invest relatively modest sums of public money and that brings in real returns.”
It comes after The Telegraph leaked a recording of Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones admitting that their energy plans would cost “hundreds of billions” of pounds. He dubbed the original £28 billion black hole – already an eye-watering figure – a “tiny” amount compared to the reality. It’s clear they’re hiding the true cost of the plans, which will ultimately be shouldered by taxpayers. Labour will do as they always do: tax and spend, tax and spend…
Labour’s tightly choreographed pledge card event featured a parade of activists and sympathisers rolled out to endorse Keir’s ‘first steps’. As always with such events, there’s more spin than substance…
“Great teachers transformed my life” said Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, as she advocated for “education of opportunity” while bashing private schools. Firing up the class war she crowed: “all of our children deserve what has been the privilege of too few, and we’ll pay for it by ending tax breaks for private schools, and we’ll invest that money in a better start for all of our young people”.
Phillipson then immediately introduced an LSE masters student, Tito, to “talk about the difference teachers made to her life and the difference Labour wants to make to every life” – as if to exemplify Labour’s regressive attacks on private schools. Tito explained she aimed to ‘one day’ be part of a Labour government, having been inspired by teachers at Queen Elizabeth Girls’ School in Barnet (a non-selective state school). Tito spoke well and no doubt has a career in politics ahead…
However, awkwardly for Phillipson, a quick check of the receipts shows that Tito also attended fee-paying St Margaret’s Hampstead, which praised her for being included on a list of high achieving students. Good job there was no VAT on that…
The Tories launched their free childcare expansion package today. Gilligan Keegan had quite a tough time on the morning round, getting into a fiery clash with BBC Breakfast presenter Sally Nugent when the Education Secretary pointed to the worry of Labour entering Downing Street, “because they will not continue free childcare“. Nugent took Keegan to task, claiming that she was wrong…
However, (perhaps unusually) Keegan is right – Labour have not committed to continuing the government’s free childcare package. Last week, Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson refused to back the plan, claiming that the current plan is “just a tacking on of additional commitments that I don’t think is working, either for providers or for parents”. Nick Thomas-Symonds put out a contradictory line yesterday saying that the Labour Party would keep the expanded childcare hours in place. Then this morning Pat McFadden said they would go into a consultation on the policy. More Labour flip-flopping…
