Lucy Connolly is in prison for a tweet. Not a threat, not a plan of action—just an emotional outburst, written in the hours after a beast in human form man stabbed three girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s event in Southport. Her message was hyperbolic and—in its fury—entirely comprehensible. She deleted it within four hours. She has no criminal record. She will now spend nearly three years in prison.

The Americans have noticed. Or, more precisely, the Americans behind the current Trump regime have decided to take an interest. The State Department has announced that it is “monitoring” Connolly’s case. US officials have raised it with the British Government. And this is not, as some of our domestic pundits are pretending, an act of overreach. It is something far worse—for Keir Starmer: it is a warning from above, and not necessarily from Washington.

I will repeat my general case about who gives orders in the West. This is not governed by its parliaments or its presidents. It is governed by a diffuse but coherent monied interest: a transnational financial class, rooted in the City of London and New York, whose wealth is no longer tied to enterprise or production but to debt, speculation, and control. This ruling class does not manage day-to-day affairs. It leaves that to the governing class: the politicians, civil servants, journalists, police commissioners, NGO managers, and corporate fixers who form the visible regime. These are allowed discretion in methods—but only within boundaries.

The ruling class sets the objectives. These are not hard to identify. Over the past three decades, they have included: the destruction of national borders, the censorship of dissent, the promotion of social atomisation, the dismantling of the middle class, and the transformation of the Western population into a docile consumer-labour force with no collective identity, no memory, and no means of resistance.

This was not a conspiracy in the vulgar sense. It was a set of strategies that appeared to serve the ruling class. The monied interest had no use for nations. It had use only for liquidity, obedience, and markets open to manipulation. The governing class, for its part, embraced the slogans it was given—diversity, tolerance, inclusion—and enforced them with growing brutality. It built a flexible system of managerial authoritarianism: not a central dictatorship, but an overlapping network of institutions all pulling in the same direction. Universities, courts, police forces, health boards, tech companies: each had its own incentives, its own clients, its own reasons to suppress dissent. The result was totalitarianism without the uniforms. A Twitter gulag. A world where girls were raped for years in Rotherham while police arrested men for misgendering.

But now the ruling class is changing its mind—not about its goals, but about its methods. The last ten years have revealed the weaknesses of the model. The British population is demoralised, but no longer quiet. American cities are ungovernable. Germany is visibly falling apart, unable even to make cars that people want to buy. France has lost control of its suburbs. The natives were supposed to be cowed and confused—not furious, not organised, and certainly not ready to fight. The system worked too well. It destroyed the very human material it needed to function.

Enter the Trump regime—not as saviour, but as instrument. The current American administration is not a deviation from the ruling class. It is a new face, chosen because the old ones wore out. It is an attempt to stabilise the empire, not reform it. The new strategy is moderation—not in aims, but in presentation. Cut back the more absurd excesses. Loosen the chokehold just enough for the population to breathe. Jail fewer dissidents. Let men be men again, so long as they keep enlisting and paying taxes.

Trump’s people understand this. So does Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, who is leading the charge to reposition the United States as the world’s moral authority—on American terms. There must be censorship, but without martyrs. There must be social control, but with a smile. It is, to borrow from the French, a Thermidorian moment. Not a counter-revolution, but a consolidation. The knives are out—not for the ruling class, but for its overenthusiastic servants.

And that brings us back to Lucy Connolly. What happened to her is not unusual. People are prosecuted in Britain every week for saying things that offend the official ideology. What makes her different is the context. A woman—white, conservative, married to a councillor—sent to prison for three tweets, at a time when America is trying to signal restraint. She is not a political activist. She did not plan anything. Her words were ephemeral. Yet she was handed a 31-month sentence. That is more than some child abusers receive, more than knife criminals, much more than serial shoplifters. She was not punished for what she did. She was punished for who she is and what she represents: a member of the native majority who expressed forbidden rage.

And in the eyes of Washington, that punishment was not just wrong; it was tactless. Starmer’s regime, trapped in the methods of the past, cannot see this. Its ministers are still chasing Stonewall endorsements and praising gender ideology. They think their job is to double down on the slogans of 2015. They have cancelled the grooming gang inquiries for fear of upsetting Moslem voters. They still believe that appeasing every client group of the old coalition—migrants, minorities, green activists, sexual radicals—is the path to ruling class approval.

But that coalition is no longer wanted. The Americans have moved on. They want discipline, not hysteria. Efficiency, not ideology. Britain, under Starmer, is becoming a liability: a place where free speech cases are interfering with trade deals; a place where American officials have to apologise for the behaviour of their supposed allies; a place where the illusion of liberal democracy is too obviously a lie.

The State Department is not “monitoring” Connolly’s case because it cares about her. It is doing so because the sentence has made Britain look ridiculous. A liberal democracy that jails women for speech is not a useful satellite. It is an embarrassment.

What comes next is predictable. There will be quiet calls, off-record briefings, diplomatic pressure. Perhaps Connolly’s sentence will be reduced. Perhaps there will be new guidance to prosecutors. Perhaps nothing will change—until Starmer is replaced with someone more competent. Not more principled—just better at following orders.

This is the real dynamic of our time. The ruling class has called a new tune. The Trump regime is playing it. The Starmer regime it not. And so it is being pressured—not to abandon censorship, but to conduct it more gracefully.

There is no justice coming. Only a cleaner lie. Lucy Connolly may be released early. Her conviction may one day be quietly overturned. But she will not be vindicated. Her case will not be remembered as a turning point. It will be a footnote—an early casualty of the transition from old authoritarianism to the new.

We should not mistake this for victory. We should not thank our rulers for letting one victim go. The system has not changed. It is merely adjusting its costume.

One does not thank a forest fire for changing direction.