Keir Starmer responds to free speech row after journalist quizzed & tells cops to ‘focus on what matters to communities’

SIR Keir Starmer has told cops to absorption “on what matters to communities” — not connected tweets.

The PM waded into the escaped code enactment aft a writer was quizzed over a year-old deleted message.

The backlash grew arsenic it emerged children arsenic young arsenic 9 and radical astatine enactment are being investigated for alleged non-crime hatred incidents (NCHIs).

Sir Keir, successful ­Brazil contiguous for the G20 summit, told reporters: “Firstly, obviously, this is simply a substance for the police themselves.

“I deliberation that arsenic a wide rule the constabulary should ore connected what matters astir to their communities.”

Telegraph writer Allison Pearson revealed that Essex Police quizzed her astir a tweet from November 2023.

They accidental it is being treated arsenic a transgression substance but she said she was told it is some a non-crime hatred incidental and an allegation of inciting radical hatred.

Essex’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Roger Hirst stoked the enactment by asking if probing non-crime hatred incidents was “the champion usage of officers’ time”.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said constabulary should absorption connected “investigating crimes”.

The Home Office said it was reviewing whether the existent process “strikes the close balance”.