Click here to read the article
The NCHI is a policing tool that allows officers to record acts or speech that, while not criminal, are ‘perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice’. This means that literally anything you do or say could be logged as hateful, as long as there is a snitch willing to report it and a police officer willing to record it. Dad jokes, playground insults and neighbourly disputes have all been treated as hate incidents in recent years. The Free Speech Union estimated last year that 65 people per day are recorded by police as having committed an NCHI. The Met’s new policy is unlikely to change this, as its announcement states explicitly that it will ‘continue to record’ these incidents, even if it wastes less time investigating them.
Fraser Myers, Spiked, 21st October 2025.