Despite what Emma Thompson may say, this ‘cake-filled, misery-laden, grey old island’ is actually a more than half-decent place to live. Most of the time, anyway. That it remains so is remarkable, given the provocations inflicted upon us by our political overlords. Here are three stories to make you weep. (And as you know, three stories constitute a sodding trend.)
First, the Independent reports that the government (in England and Wales) plans to make it illegal for publicly-funded bodies – including councils – to boycott goods produced in areas of the world, or by industries, they deplore. According to a ‘senior’ government source quoted by the paper, a crackdown on town-hall boycotts is overdue because said protests have ‘undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate, and fuelled anti-semitism’.
Heavens above. I have no time for the lack-witted dullards and nincompoops who demand the boycotting of Israeli goods (let us not be coy and pretend that this is really about anything else). Indeed I deplore these actions for all the usual and familiar reasons. Nevertheless, deploring something is a poor reason for criminalising that something. You might not like this kind of boycott but the ballot box, not the court-room, is the place for registering that discontent. Moreover, this is plainly a speech issue and the government’s plans – should they ever come to anything – are evidently a restraint of perfectly legitimate speech. As always, the legitimacy of speech, or indeed most political views, does not depend upon your approving the speech itself.
Second, a case from the Scottish appellate court, in which Lords Bracadale and Drummond Young considered the case of one Liam Rodgerson, convicted for breaching the terms of the Communications Act (2003) by posting on Facebook ‘messages which were grossly offensive or of an indecent or obscene or menacing character in that they did contain grossly offensive remarks about the death of a child and sexual remarks about children’. These messages, as the court accepted, were jokes. Jokes in poor, even deplorable, taste but jokes nonetheless.
The first of these, posted by Rodgerson, went like this. ‘After finding a five year old Scottish boy dead with his heart missing, a police spokesman said, that must have been one hell of a game of operation they played’. Hahahahaha. This then prompted an exchange of pleasantries with one of Rodgerson’s chums in which the pair appear to have attempted to out-sick one another. All very distasteful, for sure, but hardly the sort of thing to draw the attention of the police in a civilised country that hasn’t lost its mind.
In that kind of country Rodgerson and his pal would not be prosecuted for the offence of being – and here I use the technical term – a pair of wee fannies. Nor, having been persuaded to plead guilty to a victimless crime and subsequently sentenced to a community pay-back order, would Rodgerson also have been put on the sex offenders register. But that is what happened to him. Oh glad, confident, country in which making a witless and off-colour joke about paedophiles can place you on a register alongside actual paedophiles! (This was the subject of Rodgerson’s appeal; an appeal which was successful. He is no longer deemed a sex offender. He may remain a wee fanny.)
Thirdly, also in Scotland, one Megan McFadden was up in court last month charged with behaving ‘in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by acting in an abusive manner, and posting offensive and sectarian remarks on her Facebook page’. What, you ask, did she say? A good question. She exhorted her favoured football team, Celtic FC, to ‘get right into these dirty orange inbred monkey bastards’. Said bastards, you will understand, being the representatives of Rangers FC.
Naturally, this being the Age of Hurt Feelings, one tender-brained Rangers supporter – doubtless an aficionado of tit-for-tat offence-taking – reported poor Miss McFadden to the authorities. Equally predictably, the authorities decided to take action and prosecute Miss McFadden. The public interest behind this prosecution remains unfathomable and, with all due apologies to the torn feelings of Rangers supporters who stumbled across Miss McFadden’s exhortation to her chosen champions, it seems to me that only actual dirty orange inbred monkey bastards could really be ‘offended’ by her comments. Even then, more intelligent kinds of simian would be blissfully unperturbed by said remarks.
But there you have it, the test for criminal prosecution these days appears to be whether a simpleton might take offence at something reasonable people – if any remain – would simply choose to ignore. And when a simpleton demands action, by jove the police will act.
Such is the way of the world, however. If being seen to do something demands the suppression of speech then speech must be suppressed. Who, after all, other than tinfoil-hatted libertarians will stand up for the rights of objectionable people to behave objectionably? Who will argue that crimes should have victims and that speech, even, especially, speech you dislike, should be protected? Precious few, it seems.
Don’t you understand that authoritarian restrictions on speech are good for you? How else may your feelings be protected? And, look, you should probably think of the children too. Just to be safe.
What a country; what a time to be alive.
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