April 4, 2024 - 2:00pm
In normal circumstances, people tend to know whether or not they’ve committed a crime. That’s no longer the case in Scotland, however, where the effects of a poorly-drafted piece of legislation are already being felt. Since Monday — April Fools’ Day, appropriately enough — no one can say with any certainty whether they’ve committed an offence under the SNP’s new hate crime law. They don’t even know whether a “non-crime hate incident” (NCHI) has been recorded against them, affecting their chances of future employment or their ability to volunteer for a good cause.
The Hate Crime and Public Order Act has created a vague criminal offence of “stirring up of hatred”, with stiffer sentences if the offence involves prejudice on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Earlier this week the First Minister, Humza Yousaf, claimed it was needed to deal with a “rising tide of hatred” in Scotland and across the world, although the latter regrettably falls outside his remit. Ministers often cite “hate crimes” against trans people as a reason why the new law is needed, yet Scotland’s official figures tell a different story. Recorded hate crimes in this category have decreased dramatically, from a high of 86 in 2021/22 to 55 the following year.
What the Act has done is create opportunities for anyone who wants to settle a score or make trouble for a public figure. Almost 4,000 complaints were received by the police in the first 24 hours, many of them targeting the novelist J.K. Rowling, who challenged the legislation with a thread on X describing 10 trans women as men. The Scottish Tories estimate that 1.4 million complaints could be made under the new Act in the next 12 months, many of them anonymous.
In a rather delicious development, complaints about Rowling were outnumbered by complaints against Yousaf — who steered the legislation through Holyrood when he was Justice Minister — in relation to a speech he made about race in 2020. Police Scotland swiftly announced that Rowling’s posts on X did not meet the criminal threshold under the new Act, while it said that complaints against Yousaf had been investigated at the time and dismissed.
But their acknowledgement that an NCHI has not been recorded in either case exposes glaring inconsistencies — and apparent political bias — in the way the law is applied. A Conservative MSP, Murdo Fraser, is threatening legal action against Police Scotland after discovering the force has logged an NCHI against him.
Fraser’s “offence” was sharing a post on X that ridiculed the Scottish government’s “non-binary action plan”, suggesting that “identifying” as non-binary is “as valid as choosing to identify as a cat”. The discrepancy has prompted an accusation by the SNP MP, Joanna Cherry KC, that Police Scotland is revising policy “on the hoof” to avoid the embarrassment of recording an NCHI against a famous author and philanthropist.
The police says every report will be investigated, taking up time that could be devoted to actual crimes. In Edinburgh 80% of burglaries are unsolved, while rape reports reached a new high in Scotland in 2022/23, yet officers are now apparently expected to respond to every complaint about hurt feelings. This looks very much like a politicised police force, forced into a position where it has to pander to the demands of busybodies and extremists. The only answer is to repeal.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeThe move from capital to labour based on demographics and financial repression is real and will be sustained (Peter Zeihan would say out to mid 2030s when kids of the millenials are available and sovereign debt levels are back to levels which avoid fiscal dominance).
To late boomers or folks thinking of early retirement I would say don’t unless you’ve run the numbers for a 5 % point real annual decline in income over a 10 year period (or are happy to bite substantially into capital).
Don’t touch sovereign bonds, get into a SIPP to try and avoid mandated sovereign bond holding, hold industrial equites in your own name (not a brokerage account), and don’t ignore commodities. I would also listen to some Russell Napier interviews (many good YouTube examples online – as a financial historian of repute he knows exactly what to expect)
I don’t always agree with John Rapley, but he’s right on this one.
Meanwhile, right now there’s price gouging going on in the fmcg space.
That’s not retiring – it’s moving into a new, demanding and tedious career as a money manager/ financial analyst. Take up growing your own food instead (see comments above).
BLACKSTONE BUYING UP US HOUSING. WHERE DO THEY GET THE MONEY. WHERE DO THEY GET IT ? i ask you. Its a mystery where it comes from ? But im off toopic. Housing isnt factored in to inflation. Anyway i own nothing and im happy, dont mind me. Off to worry about girlboss feminism or some such
The real economy of things and people is rebalancing supply side problems. The financial side is dealing with the problems of fiat money. Eventually all the debts of the state will either be inflated away with a total Wimar scale hyperinflation, or a debt jubilee will be proclaimed. All previous governments have chosen the hyperinflation resolution. A jubilee would be quicker and less painful, and less likely to lead to revolution. It appears that hyperinflation is less painful to elites and more painful to commoners. The reverse is likely true of a jubilee.
The US (and other western countries) hugely expanded the money supply, which by definition creates inflation, and made concerted efforts to “end fossil fuels.”
Those are the real reasons for historically high inflation.
Quite, that aspect of the downtown in the economy was entirely self inflicted
Printing money is more of a problem than food prices!
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Sadly the liquidity spiggots are still on – they’re just changing the name of each initiative to try and disguise the facts, although Yellen is being brazen with the issuance of short-term treasuries in terms of debt monetisation. Whilst the montary stimulus is inflationary, it continues to blow up asset prices. The reversion to the mean of this ever-expanding balloon could simply mean more and more years of financial repession. As Luc Gromen says if we need to get from 120% debt:gdp back to 50%, we can do 20% real inflation over 3.5 years or 5% over 14. It’s potentially going to be long and painful. Of course a war could allow the reset and new deal settlement. No options look great, but clearly some worse than others.
The food prices in Tesco most certainly have not fallen or plateaued. To the contrary, they have appear to have risen substantially since Christmas 2023 – as has the price of almost everything else. Everyone we know is complaining about the sharp price rises of foodstuffs in supermarkets.
It is not as bad as 2008/09 when our electricity bills increased overnight by c.60% while being told that the rate of inflation was near zero of even below! Some of us have lived long enough never to believe anything that governments (i.e. elected politicians and civil servants) tell us!
No idea whether you have any appetite or space for growing your own, but we’ve made it a 4 year mission to learn how to seed save, grow, and preserve food stuffs. One of the most unexpectedly rewarding things I’ve ever done. Either that or I need to get out more.
Of course ‘world events’ could disrupt this trend quite rapidly. Probably the big two being – China does something in S China sea re: Taiwan; conflict escalates directly with Iran. Heightened trade war US/China and/or major developments in Ukraine probably jostle for a third?
But that aside the Author’s final point worth really recognising – income has being moving from workers to owners for decades! Yep too right and fundamentally increasing inequality as it does so, as well as generating incentives to invest in Assets rather than businesses that generate goods and services and well paid employment. Author dead right to flag this, but may grossly underestimate how much this will be corrected by the inflation/interest rate levels now predicted. This still leaves ‘ratcheted in’ long term inequality, unfairness and disincentives, particularly inter-generational. It is the root cause of so many of our problems. Grasping that at least it may ‘slow’ as a trend not a great consolation. We need to tackle it much more fundamentally
Central Bankers have inflated Asset prices . We must not let them do it again.
IDK. I’m not seeing any of this in my neck of the woods. Fuel prices spiked very recently, only in part due to a rise in Canadian carbon taxes. Food prices are still rising noticeably.
One of the reasons that this hasn’t caused a huge fuss is that 60% of home owners have now paid off their mortgages. 30 years ago, an interest rate hike would have caused a political firestorm. Now neither increased borrowing rates or falling house prices bothers a mortgage-free owner occupier. In fact, having a reasonable saving rate is a net positive for them.
Now if we just had a sensible level of immigration which was balanced with our ability to build new homes, we could see house prices drop to the benefit of those first time buyers and renters.
I see the “blip” of interest rates down at the one or two percent between 2010 and 2020 as the “not normal” phenomena.
A quick search shows the average to 7.7% over 50 years in the UK.
4%/5% seems very reasonable to me going forward.
Agree. Pre 2008 my rule of thumb was a neutral policy was a 2-2.5% real short term rate i.e. if inflation expectations were 2% then neutral nominal interest rates should be 4-4.5% with bond yields a bit higher.
The artificially low or negative real rates of 2008-2022 led to inflation. It just emerged as house and other asset bubbles rather than goods inflation because of the disinflationary impact of globalisation.
I suspect central bankers will end up being much criticised for the 2008-22 period.
Spot on, and for the foreseeable future potentially something of a roller coaster (just been listening to a podcast about the potential for $200 barrel oil next year based on certain geo-political scenarios).
Long may it continue