10 February 2025
Someone made a comment after my letter that I should be careful when I write my submissions to the Good Oil. It is advice that is well heeded.
This month, a YouTuber by the name of Silver Fox was arrested and overnighted in Kettering Police Station. Silver Fox is well known for his reporting on Scottish political matters and is no friend of the Sturgeon/Yusaf regime, nor the Scottish National party. He has recently been extending his coverage to comment on United Kingdom politics.
He was reported to the police with four allegations of hate crime. The informant was not disclosed, but two of the posts complained of were directed at or mentioned Sir Keir Starmer.
He was visited at nine pm by four police officers in two police cars. He was kept in a cell and waited for the duty solicitor. He was then interviewed for 90 minutes in the presence of the duty solicitor. He was then returned to the cell and later released.
There had apparently been complaints about four of his YouTube videos. In one of the videos he was complaining about illegal immigrants, in the second one he satirically compared Otto Scholz (I think he meant Olaf) with a certain moustached house painter from Austria. He was pointing out the irony of Herr Scholz bemoaning a certain group in society, as did the Austrian painter (different groups). This was deemed to be a hate crime. The two other videos referring to Sir Keir Starmer were also claimed to be hate speech.
(An aside: when does dislike become hate? As a child I used to dislike broccoli, now I hate it. Perhaps the authorities use an official Likert scale?)
The police then very kindly returned him home.
Silver Fox suggests that, based on questions not answered and other reactions, all the complaints came from one individual. He further suggests that there was a political element to the complaints. I think that the Free Speech Union (FSU) will be taking an interest in this case.
As usual, in this and similar cases, it is the process that Silver Fox and other people suffer that is the punishment.
I will leave readers to form their own opinions as I don’t feel that it would be wise for me to risk commenting.
