Tyranny is a sneaky thing. It often scurries in on the back of controversy. It is often when people are angry about something that authoritarians spy an opportunity to take a potshot at liberty. And, boom, before you know it politicians are on TV calling for entire media channels to be shut down.
This is political censorship masquerading as a cry for social justice
This is where Britain is at right now. The speed with which the social-media fury over Laurence Fox’s dumb comments on GB News morphed into a campaign to shut GB News down has been extraordinary. Forget Fox’s broadcasting career – it is media freedom itself that now hangs in the balance.
Of course Fox’s comments were crass and sexist. To judge a woman by her ‘shaggability’ – as Fox did when speaking about the political journalist Ava Evans on Dan Wootton’s show this week – is odious. You’d expect to hear such blather from a gang of teen boys in the pub, not on a supposedly serious news channel.
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