Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My poster girl for free speech

She’s been given an anti-social behaviour notice for expressing her political beliefs in the window of her own home

Now is the time of year to take down the Christmas decorations from your front window and put up, in their place, the anti-immigration posters. Please display them prominently and make sure the message on each is suitably strident. It behoves all of us to do this, as quickly as possible, even — perhaps especially — if we are liberally minded. For this is not about immigration, per se. It is to show solidarity with Ms Anne Maple, who is aged 61 and unfortunate enough to live in Lewisham.

I do not know Ms Maple personally. It may well be that, rather than a sainted individual, she is a meddlesome old ratbag. Either way, Lewisham Council has issued her with a total of eight anti-social behaviour notices in the last few years, for stuff like messing about with the communal bins near her home and also for feeding foxes (which I was not aware was an anti-social act. It seems to me a rather kindly act. Unless the council thought she was ‘grooming’ the animals preparatory to setting them on her neighbours.) Anyway, Mrs Maple’s most notable notices were issued for neither the bin business nor her vulpine catering services. It was because she put up posters advising passers-by to support Brexit and vote Conservative and, apparently, urging an end to immigration.

Yes — they gave her a couple of ‘Asbos’ for advertising her legitimate political beliefs in the window of her own home; beliefs which on the face of it are shared by 52 per cent of the voters (Brexit), 38 per cent of the population (latest Conservative poll standings) or about 70 per cent of the population (no more immigration). Regarding this last issue, this is what the magnificently arrogant council officials had to say to her: ‘It has been brought to our attention that you have displayed a sign in your window regarding immigrants or perceived immigrants in the UK.

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