Is there a Toby Young in the House (Of Lords)?

Many loyal listeners of the late and very-much lamented podcast, London Calling, may recall the semi-annual banter between the co-hosts, James Delingpole and Toby Young, about Toby's ongoing ambition to be cited on the "Honours List," a twice-yearly proclamation (one comes out at New Year's, and the other on the monarch's official birthday in the summer) for an award, an honor, or a peerage, announcing those who are seen to have done good things for the country.

Inexplicably, Toby was always disappointed that his name was never on the list, and James seemed never to be surprised that his friend had been overlooked (again).

Well, Lord Toby's day is just around the corner: Free speech champion Toby Young awarded peerage.

Now, I have some differences with the future Lord Toby. He's a bit of a squish on a few issues, and his ignorance of how a US president is elected, of the role played by the Electoral College, and of why differences in the "national vote" totals don't define the full story of the election, is bottomless and boundless. But he's stalwart on the issue of free speech in a country where such a thing--while widely acknowledged--isn't written into law, and his record on the matter, sometimes against considerable odds, is almost impeccable (I think he could have spoken up a bit more vociferously in support of Mark Steyn, although perhaps Young's own position as a regular contributor on GBNews at the time put him in something of a bind).

In addition, Young's performance as a podcast co-host (London Calling, The Weekly Sceptic), is also very consistent, although perhaps not in such an uplifting way.

Ricochet readers may recall the last time Toby Young really hit the news bigly, a little more than two years ago, when his personal Paypal account, the Free Speech Union's Paypal account, and the Daily Sceptic's Paypal account were cancelled, almost simultaneously for spurious woke reasons. Those accounts were--quickly, and after an enormous public backlash--reinstated, although not after harm was done to the reputation of all three.

Just nine months later, Nigel Farage was "debanked" by Coutts, and the predatory practices of big tech and big finance, in going after those who refused to bend the knee to the contemporary political agenda, became worldwide news in an even bigger way.

Kudos to Kemi Badenoch, new leader of the Conservative Party, for nominating Toby for this honor. She also nominated, for a peerage, Nigel Biggar, retired Oxford Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, and author of the splendid 2023 book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. The book was accepted by Bloomsbury, and subsequently rejected because the publisher felt that "public feeling" would not view it favorably. It was then published by HarperCollins, and--remarkably for the time--appears to be still in print.

Kemi Badenoch, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants to the UK, who spent much of her childhood and adolescence in Nigeria, and a few years of it in the US, knows a thing or two about colonialism and its aftermath. Prior to her election, the reprehensible Labour MP Dawn Butler tagged Badenoch as "white supremacy in blackface," but it's my hope that Kemi will have the last laugh.

This is a good start.