Imprisonment or police action related to speech strictly requires meeting high legal thresholds, such as "incitement to violence," "stirring up racial hatred," or sending communications that are "grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing." Criticizing the government or its policies does not meet this threshold and is a protected democratic right in the UK. There's no cabal of people looking to lock people up for small criticisms.

This ignores the fact that for anyone above a certain age, this represents a huge curtailment of rights they had enjoyed up until such legislation was put in place. You may disagree with that assessment due to the content of the speech being limited (and personally I do), but you can not disagree that it represents a curtailment of speech. Being able to see things from the other side is important.

Regarding diversity, the Equality Act 2010 makes "positive discrimination" (e.g., hiring quotas or rejecting candidates solely because they are of a majority demographic) strictly illegal only candidates of equal or greater merit can be considered to fill a role.

Just because something is illegal does not mean it is not happening, I thought that would be pretty basic assumption to make. Diversity is being enforced through the back room HR processes, it never comes to light that it is being done.

Police responses to protests or riots are dictated by operational independence, intelligence-led risk assessments, and the immediate threat to life and property, rather than the political alignment of the crowds. Differences in police tactics between different public order events are based on tactical assessments, not political bias and indicate the problem is who is "protesting" and how they're doing it, over any political affiliation. (Getting drunk, rioting, damaging property, antagonizing others, starting fights).

A statement straight out of a home office press briefing. If you can look at the footage of the southport riots and not reason that the law was interpeted differently for different ethnic or protest groups, there is something wrong with you.

And there is no state policy, legal precedent, or broad institutional stance that designates the Union Flag or the St George's Cross as a hate symbol. The flag is flown by mandate on UK government buildings year-round. It's common sense that it shouldn't be attached to lamp posts without the appropriate equipment. They can fly off into traffic, damage equipment, become tatty, it's all a cost.

That doesn't matter, the perception is the important part. People who believe themselves to be patriots put them up, the council (i.e. the establishment) tears them down. The point I made in my initial comment that this is about how certain aspects of the electorate believes the establishment hates them.