1/ So I had a look into Theresa May's coming announcement that she will "consider a new offence to protect politicians and their families". For those who have been worrying that we don't need any new offences which potentially penalise political speech; well, wait for this...
2/ The proposals appears to be a report by Parliament's Committee on Public Life from last year (gov.uk/government/upl…) on 'Intimidation in Public Life'. It sounds like the PM will be accepting many of the recommendations. The most controversial is the new offence...
3/ The recommendation is to create a new offence "in electoral law" of intimidating parliamentary candidates. Sounds sensible, right? But wait! What would it mean for political speech? And is a new criminal offence even needed? 
4/ I'm afraid I have bad news for fans of this new offence. First of all, the committee that recommended it asked the police if they needed any new offences. It turns out that the police were very clear *they don't*. Here are a couple of very clear quotes from the report itself 
5/ If that wasn't clear enough, here is the huge 'suite' of offences which are available to the police to manage harassment/violent threats etc against politicians whether on social media or not. Pretty comprehensive - that's why the police don't want a new offence. 
6/ So why, you might ask, is the Committee recommending (and the Prime Minister taking up the idea of) a new offence? Well, this is where it gets murky. Here's the bit where they move from nobody asking for a new offence and recommending one. Try and follow this one, logic fans! 
7/ So, to summarise, (i) there is "no evidence" that the current criminal law is insufficient, (ii) "no behaviour which is currently legal should be made illegal", (iii) but a new offence in electoral law is necessary to "highlight the seriousness of the threat of intimidation"
8/ I am calling this one. It's nonsense on stilts. It is clearly a case of "something must be done" and this is "something" so it must be done. It's irresponsible as even the police aren't calling for it but it will no doubt have a chilling effect on free speech around elections
9/ Remember free speech? How do you fancy police and CPS deciding - during elections! - what constitutes this extremely vague definition of intimidation 👇🏼. The police should be kept far away from having to make these kind of calls. This is a bad idea and should be binned /end 
