The Peter McCormack Show – Episode #125 Guest: Tom Slater Episode Title: Policing Speech & Ignoring Crime: The Decay of the UK Date: November 4, 2025

Overview

In this incisive conversation, Peter McCormack is joined by Tom Slater, editor of Spiked, to unpack the accelerating decay of state institutions, the rise of censorship, and the growing disconnect between the UK’s governing class and everyday citizens. Centered on the themes of free speech, policing priorities, political realignment, and the consequences of misplaced government incentives, the episode crisply navigates both the nuance and urgency of the UK’s current crisis.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Decay of the State – Priorities Out of Order

• The UK state is failing at core responsibilities like public safety, while zealously policing speech and funding misguided initiatives.
  • Slater: “There are certain things that the state does need to do and it's doing those things terribly. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of things it shouldn't do at all. And it's doing that zealously..." [00:00]
• Citizens increasingly feel that taxes and contributions vanish, with living standards falling and state services decaying.

2. Cultural and Class Blindness in Political Movements

• The Greens and Labour parties appeal to metropolitan and youthful naivety, often insulated from the real effects of their policies.
• The working class feels abandoned, shifting toward Reform or other alternatives, splintering old loyalties:
  • McCormack: “The party itself doesn't represent the working class anymore because... they've fundamentally been left behind.” [14:40]
  • Slater: "On all these different levels, it's like they're on the wrong side of the working class, but they still claim that that is actually their core constituency. But it's just not washing anymore." [16:35]
• Policies like net zero and immigration are positioned as "class issues," not purely ideological divides.

3. Immigration, Community Impact, and Policy Contradictions

• Firsthand accounts of failed asylum policy, perverse incentives for NGOs and hotels, and misallocation of funding:
  • McCormack: “...they put a proposal together…we need 150 grand...And then I read we're spending, what, 15.4 billion a year on housing people.” [17:49]
  • The burden of mass/illegal migration falls largely on poorer communities, not the middle classes advocating for open policies.
• Widespread public frustration with perceived injustice, lack of transparency, and government avoidance.

4. Policing Speech vs. Real Crime

• UK police are investing significant resources in “online harms” while violent and property crime remains unsolved.
  • Slater: “We are in the UK comfortably arresting more people for speech crime today than the American state did during the first Red scare...” [36:16]
• Case studies of police overreach:
  • Parents arrested for emailing schools. [39:16]
  • Alison Pearson investigated for a deleted tweet. [45:55]
  • People like Jamie Michaels detained for Facebook videos warning against violence but expressing migration anxiety. Jury acquittal took 17 minutes. [55:18]
• Police culture has shifted markedly towards "woke" identity politics, virtue signaling (rainbow cars, hate hotlines), and policing thought rather than action.

5. Political Realignment and Public Disillusion

• Collapse of the two-party system; rise of multi-party politics (Labour, Conservatives, Reform, Greens, Lib Dems all vying for relevance).
  • Slater: “We're entering...an era of potentially four or five party politics..." [31:14]
• Elites increasingly misalign with popular sentiment, especially on migration and energy policy.
• Growing grassroots calls for direct democracy, learning from models like Switzerland, where referendums can directly block or create laws. [92:07]

6. The Problem with Political and Media Class

• Politicians and mainstream journalists are disengaged from ordinary people's lives:
  • "We've created a structure that incentivizes the worst people, dumbest people, to take up the most important positions in our country." [86:56]
  • Media often shapes stories to fit a narrative, omitting key facts that drive public mistrust. Independent media fills this gap.
• Spiked's consistent principles: freedom of speech, democracy, and human flourishing as counterpoints to decay.

7. Can the Culture Be Fixed? Where Does Optimism Lie?

• Both agree that the UK is at a breaking point, but optimism resides in the public's growing resistance:
  • Slater: “First of all, I think even though things feel like they're going a bit haywire at the moment, there is a correction underway...they're making their voices heard...” [96:06]
• Parenting, resilience, and culture change are needed, along with a smaller state, concentrated on essentials rather than all-encompassing paternalism.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On State Dysfunction

• Slater [00:00]: “It should be protecting people from violent crime, it shouldn’t be protecting people from offensive speech. And yet...they’re doing the latter and not very well doing the former.”

On Public Betrayal

• McCormack [57:22]: "That sense of betrayal exists across the country right now. I mean, I feel betrayed as a taxpayer who's worked his bollocks off for 30 years...and I feel like someone who's been demonized..."
• Slater [36:16]: “We are in the UK comfortably arresting more people for speech crime today than the American state did during the first Red scare in the early 20th century.”

On Immigration and Political Incentives

• McCormack [22:39]: "The politicians get the virtue, the hotels get the contracts, the NGOs get the contracts, but ordinary people are forced to suffer the consequences."

On Policing Priorities

• McCormack [45:55]: “I want to know how much time is my police force spending on policing these tweets and Facebook posts when there are serious social issues around drug dealing...I want the match. Because to me, none of this makes fucking sense.”
• Slater [42:20]: “It's that combination of being useless when it comes to actual crime, and sinister when it comes to speech crime…”

On Government's Inability to Improve

• McCormack [82:40]: “Defense hasn't. Borders hasn't. NHS hasn't. Education hasn't. Policing hasn't.”
• Slater [83:02]: “I can't think of nothing that certainly came from government that would be beyond some piddling little measure…”

On Direct Democracy and the Swiss Model [92:07+]

• McCormack: “Why don't we trust the citizenry to know what's best for us?...Can we have more direct democracy?”
• Slater [94:40]: “The story of the past 10 or 15 years is like the elites have gone insane and the public remain pretty commonsensical.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• State failure & priorities: [00:00–01:05], [78:28–79:39]
• Political class critique & class dynamics: [08:04–16:49]
• Immigration and social impact: [17:49–29:30], [24:22–28:03]
• Rise of speech policing: [36:15–41:26], [45:55–48:42]
• Case studies of police overreach:
  • Arrested parents: [39:17–41:26]
  • Alison Pearson: [45:55–48:42]
  • Jamie Michaels: [54:30–56:40]
• Political realignment and Reform rise: [30:30–34:53], [31:14–34:53]
• Police culture problems: [63:14–67:20]
• Media and independent voices' role: [97:13–102:14]
• Optimism for change: [96:06–98:10]

Tone

• Energetic, exasperated, sharp, anecdotal, and occasionally profane—characteristic of McCormack’s plain-spoken, inquisitive style, and Slater’s journalistic clarity.

Conclusion

Arguing that the British state has not just lost its way but actively undermines the basic social contract, the episode is a clear call for both reassertion of free speech and a radical rethink of governmental scope. Both host and guest thread personal experience with trenchant analysis, pointing to a hopeful public backlash even as institutions fray. Their optimism, tinged with frustration, underlines the possibility—but not the guarantee—of meaningful democratic renewal.