This is how freedom dies
There was an article in The Times earlier this week by Clare Foges - who used to be a number ten speechwriter during DC's time - which really quite worries me.
The title of the article was
"Our timid leaders can learn from strongmen"
and the subtitle was "Trump, Putin, Erdogan and Duterte are unpalatable demagogues in many ways but at least they get things done."
As I tweeted at the time, "They get things done" like putting children in cages, starting trade wars, cyber attacks on British companies and public services, poisoning innocent people on British soil, bombing Syrian hospitals, shooting down an airliner, and arresting thousands of people on highly dubious grounds.
The article rightly says that "Mussolini making the trains run on time does not excuse fascism" and I think we should consider very carefully before holding any strongman up as a role model.
What happened in Germany and many other countries in the mid 20th century should serve as a terrible warning that democracy and civilisation are not as firmly rooted as we like to think they are.
Clare Foges' article was published in the context that Britain's free press survived by the narrowest of margins earlier this year and free speech remains under threat.
I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that an egregious law passed five years ago would, if implemented, have meant that Britain no longer had a free press, and earlier this year attempts to force the government to bring that law into effect were twice passed by the unelected House of Lords: Britain's free press survived by nine votes and twelve votes in the House of Commons.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts act 2013, which has a strong claim to be the most iniquitous piece of legislation placed on the British statute book in the past hundred years, would have put press organisations which declined to sign up to a government-approved regulator in the position that if anyone sued them over a story they had published, they would have to pay the legal costs of both sides even if they won the case and the story was found to be completely true.
The one fortunate thing about this terrible law was that it did not automatically come into effect unless the government chose to activate it - in effect section 40 was a threat hanging over the heads of the press to try to blackmail them into to signing up to the government regulator rather than something which was necessarily intended to be used.
But a substantial lobby of people who for a range of good and bad reasons had axes to grind against the press, led by the pressure group "Hacked off," did try to activate it. A large part of the House of Commons and a majority of the House of Lords tried to amend a Data Protection Bill so as to force the government to introduce a second "Leveson" style inquiry into the press and, far worse, also backed amendments which would effectively have brought Section 40 into force.
Here in Spiked and here on this blog are some of the arguments which were made against Leveson 2 and Section 40 at the time.
As I pointed out back in May, this country has fallen to 40th in the world index of press freedom, partly because the legal environment which the likes of "Hacked off" think is too lax meant that in the first five years of this decade, Britain arrested more journalists than almost any other Western country.
I am becoming more and more convinced that we need a constitutional provision in Britain equivalent to the First Amendment to the US constitution which puts a stake in the ground m protecting free speech and free journalism.
I am not suggesting that free speech should be an absolute and unqualified right, that would be completely unworkable. Inciting people to break the law should remain a criminal offence and if you make defamatory comments about someone which you cannot prove they should be able to sue you for libel or slander.
I also believe that judges should retain the power to delay publication of court proceedings or prejudicial material where this is necessary to ensure a fair trial (the rules, in other words, which Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, was recently jailed for breaking.)
But there has to be a point where we say "thus far and no further" to state control over what we can say and think. For a start, the law must define "hate speech" much more carefully: threatening someone, or encouraging violence or terrorism should be caught by the law. So should seriously abusive or bullying behaviour although we need to ensure that these are very carefully defined.
Merely expressing an opinion which someone finds offensive or insulting should be a basic right. And yes, that should include the right to say that you believe someone's religion is untrue. and to say it in very blunt language, as long as you don't go on to threaten or incite violence against the adherents of that religion.
Just as the successful "Feel Free to insult me" campaign secured repeal of Section Five of the public order act so that it is no longer an offence to insult somebody, I believe that a similar change should be made to Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (the law under which "Count Dankula" was convicted) to ensure that making threats or inciting violence online is and should remain illegal but make clear that merely expressing an opinion someone finds grossly offensive should not.
If we do not fight to defend our freedoms, one day we will find that they have melted away.
The title of the article was
"Our timid leaders can learn from strongmen"
and the subtitle was "Trump, Putin, Erdogan and Duterte are unpalatable demagogues in many ways but at least they get things done."
As I tweeted at the time, "They get things done" like putting children in cages, starting trade wars, cyber attacks on British companies and public services, poisoning innocent people on British soil, bombing Syrian hospitals, shooting down an airliner, and arresting thousands of people on highly dubious grounds.
The article rightly says that "Mussolini making the trains run on time does not excuse fascism" and I think we should consider very carefully before holding any strongman up as a role model.
What happened in Germany and many other countries in the mid 20th century should serve as a terrible warning that democracy and civilisation are not as firmly rooted as we like to think they are.
Clare Foges' article was published in the context that Britain's free press survived by the narrowest of margins earlier this year and free speech remains under threat.
I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that an egregious law passed five years ago would, if implemented, have meant that Britain no longer had a free press, and earlier this year attempts to force the government to bring that law into effect were twice passed by the unelected House of Lords: Britain's free press survived by nine votes and twelve votes in the House of Commons.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts act 2013, which has a strong claim to be the most iniquitous piece of legislation placed on the British statute book in the past hundred years, would have put press organisations which declined to sign up to a government-approved regulator in the position that if anyone sued them over a story they had published, they would have to pay the legal costs of both sides even if they won the case and the story was found to be completely true.
The one fortunate thing about this terrible law was that it did not automatically come into effect unless the government chose to activate it - in effect section 40 was a threat hanging over the heads of the press to try to blackmail them into to signing up to the government regulator rather than something which was necessarily intended to be used.
But a substantial lobby of people who for a range of good and bad reasons had axes to grind against the press, led by the pressure group "Hacked off," did try to activate it. A large part of the House of Commons and a majority of the House of Lords tried to amend a Data Protection Bill so as to force the government to introduce a second "Leveson" style inquiry into the press and, far worse, also backed amendments which would effectively have brought Section 40 into force.
Here in Spiked and here on this blog are some of the arguments which were made against Leveson 2 and Section 40 at the time.
As I pointed out back in May, this country has fallen to 40th in the world index of press freedom, partly because the legal environment which the likes of "Hacked off" think is too lax meant that in the first five years of this decade, Britain arrested more journalists than almost any other Western country.
I am becoming more and more convinced that we need a constitutional provision in Britain equivalent to the First Amendment to the US constitution which puts a stake in the ground m protecting free speech and free journalism.
I am not suggesting that free speech should be an absolute and unqualified right, that would be completely unworkable. Inciting people to break the law should remain a criminal offence and if you make defamatory comments about someone which you cannot prove they should be able to sue you for libel or slander.
I also believe that judges should retain the power to delay publication of court proceedings or prejudicial material where this is necessary to ensure a fair trial (the rules, in other words, which Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, was recently jailed for breaking.)
But there has to be a point where we say "thus far and no further" to state control over what we can say and think. For a start, the law must define "hate speech" much more carefully: threatening someone, or encouraging violence or terrorism should be caught by the law. So should seriously abusive or bullying behaviour although we need to ensure that these are very carefully defined.
Merely expressing an opinion which someone finds offensive or insulting should be a basic right. And yes, that should include the right to say that you believe someone's religion is untrue. and to say it in very blunt language, as long as you don't go on to threaten or incite violence against the adherents of that religion.
Just as the successful "Feel Free to insult me" campaign secured repeal of Section Five of the public order act so that it is no longer an offence to insult somebody, I believe that a similar change should be made to Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (the law under which "Count Dankula" was convicted) to ensure that making threats or inciting violence online is and should remain illegal but make clear that merely expressing an opinion someone finds grossly offensive should not.
If we do not fight to defend our freedoms, one day we will find that they have melted away.
Comments