Sometimes you don’t need to dig through centuries of legal history to see bias — you just need to put two recent cases side by side.
Case One: Ricky Jones
Labour councillor Ricky Jones stood on stage in front of thousands at an anti-far-right rally, made a throat-slitting gesture and told the crowd: “We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them.”
The jury took barely half an hour to find him not guilty of encouraging violent disorder. His defence? That it was all figurative, spoken in the heat of the moment. The media framing ahead of trial repeatedly painted his words as “passion, not threat.”
Case Two: Lucy Connolly
Lucy Connolly, wife of a former Conservative councillor, posted an angry tweet after a knife attack in Southport calling for deportations and, in coarse language, suggesting asylum seeker hotels be set on fire.
She deleted it — but not before it was viewed over 300,000 times.
She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred and was sentenced to 31 months in prison. Her appeal was rejected. The coverage from the start painted her as dangerous, with little focus on intent, deletion, or context.
The Handling, Not Just the Outcome
The difference in process is what jars.
- Jones’s trial moved fast, and public narrative tilted towards excusing him.
- Connolly faced the full weight of the law, maximum sentencing, and no reprieve.
- Violent language in one context is explained away; in another, it is punished severely.
The Two-Tier Takeaway
Whether by accident or design, the message to the public is:
- If you’re on the “approved” political side, your worst language will be excused as emotion.
- If you’re on the “unapproved” political side, your language will be punished to the maximum allowed.
Hope isn’t what they promise you. It’s how you carry on when they don’t deliver. – Dave Carrera
