Ex-Trump ambassador makes fool of herself on Newsnight after claiming ‘UK jails more people for freedom of speech violations than Russia’

FASCISTS HAVE NO RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

Basit Mahmood 

19 February, 2025

Left Foot Forward

“Oh my goodness, I don’t know where you’ve got that from..."

President Trump and his Republican friends are no strangers to pushing misinformation, but even by their own poor standards, the latest claim being made by a Trump supporter is quite something.

With Trump coming under growing criticism from Ukraine and its European allies for cosying up to Putin and going above Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s head to negotiate a ceasefire, while at the same time agreeing to give Ukrainian territory to Russia, his supporters have been trying to defend him.

Trump has also drawn condemnation from Zelensky after blaming Ukraine for ‘starting the war’, with the Ukrainian President slamming the US President for living in the ‘disinformation space’.

Appearing on BBC Newsnight to discuss Trump’s decision to U-turn on the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine, former US ambassador and Trump supporter Carla Sands made the ridiculous claim, without any evidence, that there are more people in prison in UK jails for freedom of speech violations than in Putin’s Russia.

Presenter Victoria Derbyshire told Sands of former UK Prime Minister John Major’s comments, who launched a scathing attack on the US for “cuddling” up to Vladimir Putin, after U.S Vice-President JD Vance accused European countries of abandoning free speech.

Major told the BBC: “It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time they are cuddling Mr Putin.

“In Mr Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear, or die, or flee the country, or on a statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow.”

While Derbyshire read out Major’s comments, Sands interrupted and said: “There are more people in jail in the UK because they spoke what they thought was right… than there are in Russia.”

Derbyshire replied: “Oh my goodness, I don’t know where you’ve got that from, we’ve got a guest here who is laughing his head off at that.”

Reacting to Sands’ comments journalist Lewis Goodall posted on X: “A Trump shill on Newsnight claims there are more people in prison in UK jails for freedom of speech violations than in Putin’s Russia.

“These people are radicalised, insane, plain stupid or some combination of all three.”

Senior Tory accidentally exposes his own party’s appalling record on prison spaces

Basit Mahmood 

20 February, 2025 

Left Foot Forward

His gotcha question spectacularly backfires...

A senior Tory has accidentally exposed his own party’s poor record on prison spaces, as he revealed that the Conservatives increased jail spaces by just 455 places in fourteen years, which is fewer spaces than the current government has created in its seven months in office.

Tory MP Richard Holden tried to embarrass the Labour government with his written question, which asked how many new prison places were built under the previous Labour administration, between May 1997 and May 2010, and the previous Tory administration, between May 2010 and July 2024, however his attempt spectacularly backfired.

The data revealed that under the last Tory government the capacity of the prison estate increased by just 455 spaces in their fourteen years in power. Meanwhile the previous Labour government boosted spaces by 27,830 new prison places, the data shows.

To make matters worse for Holden, who asked a further written question, data showed that between 2010 and 2024, the Tories closed the doors of more than 7,500 prison cells.

He should now go away and reflect on his party’s poor performance.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward