All I Want For Christmas Is Freedom of Speech

I was in Poland back when the Iron Curtain was rusting, and a common graffito in Warsaw back then was "Hyde Parki", an appeal for the right to free speech which they did not yet have. It was a coded reference to the Northeast corner of Hyde Park in London (actually only one of a number of designated "Speaker's Corners" around the UK where anyone can say anything legal), commonly (and wrongly) called "Hyde Park Corner".

UK case law established in response to a prosecution brought on the basis of speeches made at Hyde Park states that freedom of speech in this country extends to

"the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend to provoke violence"

Furthermore, the right to free speech accorded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights also accords us the right to be offensive. I am unaware that this has changed in law, but it has certainly appears to have changed in etiquette, especially on-line.

The list of things you cannot even bring up without being showered with abuse and threats appears to be growing longer every day. This used to mainly affect those politically to the right of me, but the line of acceptable discourse has now moved to the point where I find myself (along with many others who consider themselves well left of centre) apparently on the wrong side of thought crime.

Now, I must take some responsibility for this. When I was a student activist back in the 80's I took part in protests supporting the "no-platforming" of racists and fascists booked to speak on university campuses. In fairness to us, we were looking to "no-platform" actual, unambiguous, unrepentantly violent, racists. Holocaust deniers, not "climate change deniers". This no-platforming was however apparently the starting point for the present situation.

I was no fan of notoriously foul-mouthed and very far from politically correct (even by seventies standards) Bernard Manning, (pictured above) preferring right-on comedians like Ben Elton ("right-on" is 80's for "woke"), and I'm pretty sure I'd have been willing to campaign against Manning appearing on campus as well. Through reading the Guardian, and going to University, I had become embarrassed by his kind of rough, northern, working class humour, but even then I could still see the difference between Bernard Manning and Nick Griffin. For starters, Bernard Manning was himself of Jewish descent, and consequently turned down an invitation to appear at a BNP gig in the strongest of terms.

Perversely, speaking out publicly in support of Israel is now becoming socially unacceptable, and Jews reportedly feel unwelcome in today's Labour party. It's not just Jews who find themselves on the "wrong" side of the debate, many radical feminists do too, along with anyone not willing to buy in wholesale to all aspects of a worldview I already thought ill-informed, doctrinaire, extreme and insincere when I was a teenager.

George Orwell was an aficionado of Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner. and he had something to say about the type of people who now seek to regulate public discourse

One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words...draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England...Are these mingy little beasts, I thought, the champions of the working class? For every person there, male and female, bore the worst stigmata of sniffish middle-class superiority. If a real working man, a miner dirty from the pit, for instance, had suddenly walked into their midst, they would have been embarrassed, angry, and disgusted; some, I should think, would have fled holding their noses...It is doubtful whether anything describable as proletarian literature now exists...but a good music-hall comedian comes nearer to producing it than any Socialist writer I can think of.

There is incidentally no denying that despite his hateful material, Bernard Manning was a "good musical hall comedian"- even the Guardian's obituary admitted this.

Anyone looking for the reason for what is wrong with public discourse and politics today need look no further than Orwell's "sniffish middle-class superiority" (related to what some now call "virtue signalling").

Forcing insincere petit bourgeois vocabulary and politeness on those without a "higher education" has not changed the minds of those whose views have been suppressed in the presumably desired direction. Rather, it has had the opposite effect. You can make people stop saying things related to those Bernard Manning used to say, but you can't stop them thinking them, and you can't stop them voting in accordance with their thoughts.

However, dismissing all people who disagree with you on the grounds that they are "racists", "trolls", "triggered", "x-deniers", "y-phobics", "fat", "broflake", "ugly","white", "gammon", "boomers", "old", "cis", or "straight" (or more obscure things like "terfs", "melts" and "slugs" ) is no substitute for showing them why they are wrong, if indeed they are factually incorrect.

If they are factually incorrect, educate them. Offer evidence, not insults. If they really do have a phobia, help them to stop being afraid. Don't tell them that their fear is a moral failing. It won't help. If they are not factually incorrect, but only differ from you in their religion (or lack thereof) , politics, their view of society's proper priorities, or what constitutes fairness, realise that not everyone who disagrees with you is wrong, evil, stupid or all three (which is not to say they they are not, though you should not discount the possibility that any one of these might also apply to you).

Make your case, and if they still beg to differ, accept that your only right is to have a say, not your way, and that they too have a right to a say. It's called democracy. It's far from perfect, but it's better than the alternative. And always remember we still have the right to ridicule the ridiculous. If you don't like having the mickey taken out of you, don't make it so easy for people.