Freedom of speech

Thursday

Daniel Korski

An assault on humour

On Tuesday night the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was firebombed, presumably by Islamic terrorists, for naming the Prophet Mohammed its editor-in-chief. Nobody was hurt in the attack but the newspaper’s offices have been destroyed. They still managed to see the light side, running a commentary saying “After Greece, save Charlie”. The left-wing paper has never been as popular as its main rival Le Canard Enchaine but its outrageous cartoons and caricatures are a staple of French kiosk fronts. Naming Mohammed editor may be one of the more tame things the newspaper has done. But whether it is tasteless or not, the magazine’s right to publish, insult and ridicule is

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

The danger to a free press

“In Britain, a free press is non-negotiable,” Ivan Lewis has just said – before suggesting ways that Government might, ahem, oversee this freedom. The shadow culture secretary has an idea: a register system to license journalists. “As in other professions, the industry should consider whether people guilty of gross malpractice should be struck off,” he said. He wants “a new system of independent regulation including proper like-for-like redress, which means mistakes and falsehoods on the front page receive apologies and retraction on the front page”. It’s an odd type of independence: one that would be prescribed by the political elite. And what type of journalists might it target? I’ve heard

Friday

Alex Massie

Let the English Defence League March

Speaking of the Black Shorts, there are two ways of dealing with the English Defence [sic] League: ruthless suppression or equally ruthless public mockery. So, with all due and deserved respect to Brother Bright I’m unpersuaded that it’s possible to be a “freedom of speech fundamentalist” and support banning the EDL’s proposed march through Tower Hamlets. That the EDL wants to stir up trouble is not in doubt. But unless the view is taken that their organisation should be proscribed, they have rights too and the grimness of their views is not of paramount concern. Indeed, it may be that banning their marches is more useful to them than anything

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Save Gobby

Yesterday’s appalling breach of House of Commons security has made the authorities furious – at the person who helped to bring the pictures to the world. He is Paul ‘Gobby’ Lambert, the BBC fixer who owns the voice you normally hear shouting questions at politicians as they prowl about Westminster. Gobby is known and loved by the best MPs, but is seen as an irritant by those who would prefer more deferential treatment. He is the kind of cameraman who sees a story and goes for it: the recent pictures of the Chief of the Defence Staff on targeting Gaddafi was a Gobby special, as were Cherie Blair’s comments on Brown, as was the pie-man yesterday. Gobby ran after the

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Kinnock’s Return!

Given how roughly he was treated by the press it’s not a surprise that Neil Kinnock still thirsts for revenge against tormentors. On the other hand, his appearance on the Today programme this morning when he called for the free press to be suppressed or otherwise outlawed demonstrated that, actually, the press was right to monster him all thos eyears ago. Bagehot says all that needs to be said about Kinnock’s ideas which can best be categorised as looopy when they’re not sinister and vice versa. This, however, was a truly remarkable statement: What [the rules] require is balance and I think that is all that anyone would possibly ask

Tuesday

Alex Massie

A Bill That Shames Scotland

Here’s a clue for politicians: when you’re asked if you’ve just criminalised the national anthem and all you can do is say “Er, maybe, it all kinda depends on the circumstances” the chances are you’ve produced a bill that tests even the patient, hard-to-exhaust, limits of parliamentary absurdity and you should probably put it through the shredder and start again. If, that is, you should even be legislating in these matters at all. We do things differently in Scotia New and Braw, don’t you know? So today the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee took evidence on the government’s planned and loopy and shameful and illiberal Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening

Friday

Alex Massie

Department of Law Enforcement

Via Johnson, a remarkable statute in Victoria which criminalises: Any person who in or near a public place or within the view or hearing of any person being or passing therein or thereon- sings an obscene song or ballad; writes or draws exhibits or displays an indecent or obscene word figure or representation; uses profane indecent or obscene language or threatening abusive or insulting words; or behaves in a riotous indecent offensive or insulting manner- shall be guilty of an offence. Penalty: 10 penalty units or imprisonment for two months; For a second offence-15 penalty units or imprisonment for three months; For a third or subsequent offence-25 penalty units or

Thursday

Alex Massie

Thought Crime in the Brave New Scotland

It cannot be said that Alex Salmond’s ministry is off to a good legislative start. Not when its immediate aim is, apparently, to rush through ill-considered, illiberal, speech-curbing legislation that asks the public not to worry about the detail and trust that the legal authorities will not actually enforce either the letter or the spirit of the Offensive Behaviour in Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. According to Salmond: “I am determined that the authorities have the powers they need to clamp down effectively on bigotry peddled online. The Internet is a force for good in so many ways – but it can also be abused by those who seek to spread hatred. That’s

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Clegg: No MP is above the law

The sun shone on the deputy prime minister at DPMQs earlier today. Nick Clegg usually wears a grimace at the despatch box; but he was assured this morning, successfully defending a Labour onslaught on the NHS reforms. There were even flashes of, well, Flashman. He replied to a question from Chris Bryant by quipping, “Every time the Honourable member asks a question, I wonder why anyone bugged his phone.” Clegg also rebuked John Hemming for breaking the Giggs super-injunction yesterday; a popular move among those MPs who think Hemming degraded parliamentary privilege. Clegg said: “I don’t think anyone should be above the rule of law. And if we don’t like

Monday

James Forsyth

What the attorney general needs to do

I’m sure that all CoffeeHousers know who the footballer is with the super injunction preventing newspapers from publishing anything about his affair with the Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. But if you didn’t, the papers would have made pretty odd reading over the past few days because the press keeps making little in jokes that are only funny if you know the player’s identity. David Cameron this morning announced that he knew the identity of the player.  This highlights one of many ironies of the situation, which is that far more people are now aware of who the errant footballer is than would have been if the news had just

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Hugh Grant and Low Life

I’ve always rather admired Hugh Grant, so it was almost a pleasure to be beaten up by him on Newsnight last Friday. He was attacking the celebrity-hunting media, whereas I set out to defend free press and self-regulation of the media. If you’re going to have sympathy with any Hollywood figure, you’d have sympathy with Hugh: he’s a single man who has never tried to moralise, and has cameras pointing at him everywhere he goes. Besides, he made an impassioned and powerful case against the intrusion of the paparazzi — while yours truly was left defending the Press Complaints Commission. But I didn’t know, until I met him that night,

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The press becomes the story

The power of the press has, almost from nowhere, become one of the defining leitmotifs of this Parliament. Only two years ago, the Telegraph exerted that power to (partially) clean out British politics, and won general acclaim in the process. But now, it seems, the media is more likely to have its actions attacked, or at least questioned and contained. Whether it is the Press Complaint Commissions’s censure today for those clandestine Cable tapes, or the continuing hoo-hah over super-injunctions and their infraction, there is a question hanging unavoidably in the air: how much does the public have a right to know? This is a precarious political issue, not least

Saturday

Daniel Korski

Eyes turn to Syria

The situation in Syria seems to be on a knife’s edge. Perhaps 80 protesters were killed by security forces during massive demonstrations yesterday. Checkpoints have gone up around all major cities, including Aleppo, Homs and Hama and of course Damascus. A friend who has been visiting the country this week says the situation is “pretty tense with police all around and no one, I mean almost no one on the streets. Taxis are not operating and there are no buses between cities.” The road south from Damascus to Deraa is heavily guarded to prevent the protesters moving from one city to the next. The key problem for Bashri al-Assad’s regime

Friday

Alex Massie

Burning the Koran Again

Dan Hodges disagrees with me (and with Dan Hannan) and argues that, yes, we should definitely imprison people for burning books. Certainly if that book is the Koran. And perhaps other books too. Who knows where it will all end once you start? Those who defend Quran-burning on the basis of free speech miss the point. […] This is an overt, conscious action, motivated by malign intent. It is not the product of open, free-spirited discourse, but an aggressive, premeditated provocation. Nor is it actually speech. It’s not opening a dialogue or building an argument. Quite the opposite. It’s a deliberate act of destruction; the destruction of a dialogue and

Sunday

Alex Massie

Even Goons Should Be Allowed to Burn Books

As a general rule if you’re minded to burn books you’re probably trotting along the road towards losing whatever argument you may be having. You also look a fool. That was true of the nutters who burned The Satanic Verses and it’s true of Terry Jones and true of this chap too: A senior member of the BNP who burned a copy of the Qur’an in his garden has been arrested following an investigation by the Observer. Footage of the burning shows Sion Owens, 40, from south Wales and a candidate for the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections, soaking the Qur’an in kerosene and setting fire to it. A video clip

Friday

David Blackburn

Dylan urged to stop blowing with the wind

As one famous artist vanished in Beijing, another appeared. Bob Dylan has begun a tour of China in the same week as Ai Weiwei became the most prominent victim of Beijing’s current repression drive. Ai has been unlawfully incarcerated for what the authorities describe as ‘economic crimes’, and the cry has gone out for his release. Except that the cry has been more of a whimper. Western governments have largely ignored Beijing’s clampdown, which began in February as democratic activism spread from Cairo to Chinese websites. No trade sanctions or UN Resolutions are being issued here, just stern communiqués. Some human rights activists have called on Bob Dylan’s celebrity to

Wednesday

Alex Massie

There’s No Right Not to be Offended

There’s nothing wrong with being offended by an argument but everything wrong with asserting a “right” not to be so offended. When this notional right is combined with the suggestion that the offending writer be punished or blackballed or, as seems to be possible these days, reported to the police we find ourselves in a place in which freedom of speech is honoured as an abstract, even hypothetical, concept but severely circumscribed in reality. That’s one consequence of the modern mania for asserting victimhood. If political correctness – surely as redundant a term these days as multiculturalism – means anything it asks that we honour the spirit of the good

Friday

Fraser Nelson

The threat to a British liberty

It’s a funny old world. I have now been contacted by two journalists informing me that Bedfordshire Police are investigating The Spectator. Why? Because of the Melanie Philips blog where she referred to the “moral depravity” of “the Arabs” who killed the Fogel family in Israel. CoffeeHousers can judge for themselves if they agree or disagree with her language and views – but should this be illegal?  The Guardian has written this story up, claiming The Spectator is being investigated by the Press Complaints Commission. This is untrue. The PCC tell me that a complaint has been lodged, but that’s as far as it has gone. They investigate only if

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Even Goons Have the Right to Freedom of Speech. Especially Goons, in Fact.

If only Britain had something comparable to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution then we’d enjoy greater freedoms than is currently the case. Three cheers, then, to Bagehot for defending liberalism and liberty from the predations of the law and, naturally, the Sun newspaper. The case? An easy one that might have been designed as a litmus or Rorshach test designed to discover who actually really believes in the “values” we like to congratulate ourselves for holding and those for whom such values and concerns are unimportant and may be abandoned at the first sign of trouble or the dreadful prospect that someone, somewhere is doing something of

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Egypt becomes freer

The world does really end with a whimper, not a bang, as T.S. Eliot said. After 31 years in power, seventeen days of protests, more than 300 dead and a shouting match between the US administration and its one-time Egyptian ally, it looks as if Hosni Mubarak will be leaving office tonight. Twitter is atwitter with news that the Egyptian strongman will soon make a TV appearance during which he is expected to hand power to newly-anointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Expect Tahrir Square to erupt in a festival of freedom, as the heroic, web-enabled protesters savour their unlikely but amazing victory. But while Egypt’s revolution has been more successful than