Not Learning a Lesson

Lucy Connolly strolls out of prison and what’s her first move? Not a hint of reflection, not a whisper of contrition, but a promise to sue the police for supposedly misquoting her. Nine months inside and she’s emerged convinced she’s Joan of Arc with a Twitter account. The right-wing press laps it up, of course – why waste a perfectly good martyr when you can flog her victimhood for clicks?

The lesson any sensible person would have taken – that calling for arson in the middle of a riot is a staggeringly stupid and dangerous thing to do – seems to have been completely lost on her. Instead, we’re treated to a morality play about “free speech,” starring a woman who turned her platform into a megaphone for hate. And the same brigade who wail about “personal responsibility” are suddenly fine with her blaming everyone else for her downfall. The hypocrisy is almost impressive in its shamelessness.

And here’s the massive irony: when Islamist hate preachers were jailed for saying much the same sort of thing, the very same media outlets now weeping for Connolly were silent – or cheering their prosecutions. So it’s not about free speech at all, is it? It’s about whose tribe you’re in. The outrage is selective, the principles non-existent.

As for her threatened lawsuit – good luck with that. Defamation against the CPS is like charging a windmill with a water pistol. Even if a press officer mangled a word or two, her reputation was already shredded by her conviction. You can’t libel someone with the truth of their own actions. The courts will swat this away as quickly as you can say “qualified privilege.”

But that’s not the point, is it? The legal theatre is just the latest act in a self-pity pantomime designed to whip up the faithful and rattle the donation tin. Prison hasn’t changed her, it’s refined her – from a reckless poster into a professional martyr. And while she polishes her halo for the cameras, the rest of us are left watching the slow transformation of British justice into yet another prop in the right’s never-ending grievance circus.