That’s Debatable!

When it comes to American politics, it’s probably fair to describe the events of the last seven days as ‘historic’. We begin, therefore, by asking the question, “What does the election of President Trump mean for free expression?” – and it turns out that things are perhaps more nuanced than either side would care to admit. While Trump’s classically liberal instincts sometimes serve to protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans, too often they are overridden by his determination to fight culture wars or by a fixation with settling personal vendettas. We begin today’s episode by discussing these arguments, which Freddie Attenborough has also put together for an excellent article in The Critic. Back home in the UK, The Times reports how several of Britain’s most eminent authors have told ministers that literary freedom is being “eroded” by their failure to stand up to cancel culture on university campuses. In their letter, they accuse the government of failing to safeguard “humane and liberal values”. Those signing the letter include the novelists Ian McEwan, Lady Antonia Fraser and Lionel Shriver. They have been joined by the philosopher AC Grayling, the actor and author Stephen Fry and the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion. Finally, an article in Spiked caught our attention this week, which pointed out various ways in which Ofcom appears to be applying different standards to GB News than to mainstream media outlets. This is especially worrying at a time when the Online Safety Act has granted Ofcom new authority over not only traditional broadcasting, but also social-media companies and online streaming services. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

A striking chart that we’ve included in November’s newsletter shows how the FSU has surged from just under 14,000 members at the beginning of July, to 20,100 members at the end of October – a percentage increase of 43%. As our graph highlights, it won’t be long before we’re bigger than Aslef and the National Union of Journalists. There’s good news to pass on in relation to the Judicial Review of Bridget Phillipson’s decision to pause the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. It was reported by the Telegraph over the weekend that the FSU has now been granted permission to appeal the move, with a judicial hearing set to take place in the High Court on January 23rd. In a legal document confirming permission to appeal the move, a High Court judge said it was in the “public interest” for the issue to be resolved promptly. Worryingly, though, Sir Keir Starmer has now resurrected the Football Governance Bill, which fell by the wayside during the last Parliament. Among the reams of red tape it will impose on football clubs is a requirement that they submit a “corporate governance statement” to the newly created Independent Football Regulator saying what action they’re taking on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Our concern is that this requirement will normalise what happened to our member, Linzi Smith, with tens of thousands of fans banned from attending games simply because their political views put them at odds with their club’s EDI policy. Finally, we briefly discuss our response to the latest consultation issued by the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries on the inclusion of EDI requirements in the Actuaries Code before deciding definitively not to speculate on who might win the imminent presidential election in the USA. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

The Battle of Ideas 2024 delivered yet another weekend of thought-provoking talks, panel discussions and debate. It was especially heartening to witness so many attendees from the younger generation – so-called ‘Gen Z’ – contributing to and shaping discussion that will equip us to defend enlightenment principles over the coming years and decades. How ironic it is then, that, according to a new language Guide reported on by The Telegraph, words used to discuss generational differences are to be classified as offensive across Northern Ireland’s Civil Service. The guide also advises staff to use gender-neutral language and to avoid words such as “love”, “dear” or “darling”. In Wales, meanwhile, the next chapter in the Welsh government’s tax-payer funded ‘Anti-racist Wales Action Plan’ is a project to ‘decolonise’ the childhood home of David Lloyd George. According to The Telegraph, the museum in Llanystumdwy honouring Britain’s First World War leader has worked with a “decolonisation consultant” to change its approach to history, and LGBT displays could be included in future. While our new language commissars continue their mission of command and control across the UK, we shall continue to draw refreshment from the mountain-tops of Western culture – just one reason why we’ll be listening back to the session, “Why JS Bach Still Matters” from the Battle of Ideas. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

It’s been 100 days since Sir Keir Starmer formed his new government and it’s fair to say that they have not been great for freedom in the UK. From the resurrection of Non-Crime Hate Incidents through to the establishment of a new unit commissioned with delivering a Bill to ban trans-inclusive conversion therapy, it’s quite the shopping list of free expression issues. Sadly – though perhaps not surprisingly – the July halting of the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act is now having real life consequences. On 10th October, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman was due to speak about her career and life in politics to the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA), which she led 20 years ago as a student. But the event was cancelled due to safety concerns after “Cambridge for Palestine”, a campaign group, called on supporters to “no platform” the “far Right”, claiming her “hyper-authoritarian populist policies on migration, policing and protest” represented “everything we stand against”. The FSU has since reached out to Ms Braverman and CUCA offering to pay the security costs to allow the talk to go ahead at a later date. An editorial piece in The Times  lays out that paper’s own concerns for students and free thinking. Meanwhile, Nottingham university has slapped a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, apparently because they contain ‘expressions of Christian faith’. Yet writing a collection of stories about characters on a pilgrimage from London to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket without mentioning the Church, Jesus or the Bible would be quite the achievement! We end on an upbeat note with a mention of the upcoming Battle of Ideas. The event takes place in London this weekend, 19-20 October and tickets are available here, but FSU members can get a discounted price using the link provided in the Weekly News Round-Up. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

We are delighted to welcome Bernadette (‘Bernie’) Spofforth onto ‘That’s Debatable!’ this week. The FSU offered to defend Bernie after she was arrested for a social media post on X on 29th July in the wake of the tragic Southport stabbings. She was held in custody for 36 hours on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications – this was in spite of the fact that she added the caveat “if this is true”, and deleted the relevant tweet when she discovered it wasn’t. In August, Cheshire Police confirmed Ms Spofforth had been arrested “in relation to social media post containing inaccurate information” and that she had been bailed “pending further enquiries”. However, in a video first posted to X, Bernie said the force had now decided to take NFA, or ‘no further action’. Her message continued: “Firstly, thank you for all of your messages, and I’m so sorry I haven’t responded or replied to any of you, but I couldn’t. I would have been locked up in a cell again for breaching bail conditions if I had”. Today’s conversation provides a first-hand account of the worrying state of free expression in the UK and you can find more background information on Bernie’s ordeal here. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

A report published this week by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services confirms that police actions such as ‘taking the knee’ or wearing rainbow lanyards are causing confusion amongst police officers and undermining public confidence. The review also suggested that police officers have been recording trivial matters such as non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) because of worries about getting into trouble. We briefly touch on an article by Labour MP Graham Stringer in The Sun that highlights how the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act has shocked MPs of all political stripes before moving on to the murky world of government statistics. The Times reported this week that 2021 census figures claiming there are 262,000 transgender people in England and Wales have had to be formally downgraded. The Office for National Statistics admitted that there was “potential for bias” in answers to the question: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”. Yet, as we discuss in the episode, reliable statistics are the essential building block for informing public debate, especially when the underlying issue is so culturally taboo that there are repeated attempts to shut down debate. Finally for this week, we dip into an excellent article by Greg Lukianoff in Quillette. He lays out twelve assertions that are frequently made against free expression before marshalling the counterarguments to demonstrate why each of them is flawed.  ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

A graph of FSU membership growth up to the end of August was shared on our social media channels this week and it is impossible to miss the moment at which the new government began its crackdown on free expression in Britain. As listeners and viewers will already know, one of this government’s earliest anti-free expression decisions was to shelve the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. The Telegraph revealed this week that Professor Arif Ahmed, who was to be the first director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the Office for Students, has been named as an interested party on the FSU’s application for a Judicial Review of the Education Secretary’s decision. This means that he will be able to make written submissions to the High Court and also appear in person with a barrister to challenge the Government on its arguments. The FSU’s chief legal counsel, Dr Bryn Harris, is quoted in the article, “These proceedings are of the highest constitutional importance. For almost 350 years, the governance of this country has rested on a golden premise: ministers of the Crown may not set aside the law made by Parliament”. Underlining the urgent need for the (now paused) Higher Education Act to be activated, the Telegraph has also reported on the extent to which students on campus are scared to speak their mind for fear of being cancelled. Meanwhile, yet another ludicrous speech code was revealed this week in the Mail, this time at the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a UN agency. The latest target of the speech police is gendered language, meaning no more fishermen, Englishmen or, rather oddly, lumberjacks. Finally, two religious groups have independently raised concerns about the All Party Parliamentary Definition of Islamophobia that appears to be looming ever larger on the legislative road ahead. The Network of Sikh Organisations has written to the Deputy Prime Minister saying that this definition would negatively impact the ability of people to freely discuss religion, speak openly about historical truths, and cause an amplification of a government hierarchy for different faiths. Separately, Christian Today raises concerns that Christians who deny Islam is a saving faith could also fall foul of the law.   ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

The government has this week continued its extrajudicial onslaught on civil liberties. As reported in The Telegraph, the Home Secretary is now “committed to reversing the Tories’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of non-crime hate incidents, specifically in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, so they can be logged by police”. But the underlying premise here isn’t true. Ms Braverman’s 2023 Code of Practice never prevented the recording of NCHIs. Rather, it just put the recording and retention of NCHIs on a lawful footing. Freddie Attenborough, the FSU’s Communications Officer, provides all the background in his excellent article for The Critic. Meanwhile, documents revealed as part of the FSU’s legal challenge to the pausing of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act note that “concerns” had been raised with the government about the “consequences for delivering English [higher education] in foreign countries which have restrictions on free speech”. Toby Young, our general secretary, is quoted, “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the reason universities lobbied the Government to quash the Freedom of Speech Act is because they’re worried it will jeopardise their cosy relationship with various authoritarian regimes, particularly the People’s Republic of China. Bridget Phillipson should have told them to put principle before profit, not done their bidding”. Moving to the school sector, guidance has been created for teacher training courses, to ensure future educators are “anti-racist” and challenge “whiteness”. Given that this kind of attack on Britain’s culture and history shows no sign of abating, we are particularly excited about an upcoming book launch hosted by the FSU to introduce Professor Frank Furedi’s new book, “The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for its History”. Join us on Thursday 12 September, either in person or online. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

Given the ongoing civil unrest across the UK, we are worried that the new government is about to clamp down harder and faster on our free expression than we might have first thought. Specifically, over the weekend there has been a railing against online anonymity, something that Ben Sixsmith covers in a piece for the Critic. A hastily rolled-out ban on anonymity could be a dragnet that stifles entirely lawful and benign speech and ensnares innocent people. Regular listeners and viewers will already be familiar with the Education Secretary’s move to halt the commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. We said that we would be taking action and, as reported in the Telegraph, the FSU has now sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Education Secretary, threatening a judicial review if she doesn’t reverse her decision. We have also this week been prompted to write to a local council to threaten Judicial Review of a PSPO (Public Spaces Protection Order). The PSPO passed by Thanet District Council means people within the area covered can now be fined or even face a criminal conviction for “causing a disturbance to others” or being “pejorative” in public, among other things. It effectively imposes a strict liability speech offence, with none of the safeguards which Parliament and the courts have deemed necessary when restricting people’s fundamental rights and liberties. We end today with news of a positive outcome for the sociologist Laura Favaro, who claimed that she had been denied access to her own research data after she wrote an article for Times Higher Education about how female scholars feared career damage if they criticised the idea that transgender women should be considered the same as people who are born female in all aspects of public life. We also briefly mention Almut Gadow’s case, the background to which is laid out on her crowdjustice page. Now that the government has sabotaged the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, Almut’s case has become even more important in our battle to recover academic free expression. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

Last week, the new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson issued a written statement to the House of Commons saying she intended to ‘pause’ the Freedom of Speech Act. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was the one tangible thing the Conservatives did to defend free speech in the past 14 years. Indeed, it was thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Free Speech Union that this legislation found itself on to the statute books. It would have imposed a new legal duty on English universities to uphold and promote freedom of speech on campus, and it created a couple of enforcement mechanisms, such as a new statutory tort, to make sure universities didn’t ignore that duty. At the Free Speech Union, we’ve been taking advice on a range of legal options, and without wishing to tip our hand, it’s safe to say Bridget Phillipson will be hearing from us shortly. The bottom line is we intend to fight this wanton act of vandalism with all we’ve got. If you’re not already a member of the FSU, and would like to join the fight, do please join. Meanwhile, in the world of the judiciary, a new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench book sets out in 350 pages how judges should communicate with witnesses, defendants and lawyers in courts and tribunals in England and Wales. The Telegraph reports that this new version advises Judges in England and Wales to avoid terms such as “asylum seekers”, “immigrant”, “gays” and “lame”, all of which are now deemed “politically incorrect”. Finally, Toby Young has written in this week’s Spectator about the appointment of Becky Francis CBE to lead a review of the national curriculum. He writes, “As former director of the Institute of Education and current CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation, [Becky Francis] has the outward appearance of a technocrat. But scratch the surface and, like so many Labour appointees, she emerges as a long-standing adherent of left-wing identity politics”. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

After a week that included the attempted assassination of former President Trump and the breaking news that President Biden will no longer be standing in November’s US election, we discuss how political polarisation so rapidly fosters an environment in which cancel culture thrives. Of particular note is the manner in which many on the right are now calling for the cancellation of people making off colour remarks about the attempt on President Trump’s life, a troubling phenomenon that Brendan O’Neill writes about this week in the Spectator. Closer to home, and in the wake of last year’s debanking of Nigel Farage, we discuss the findings from a review by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) on whether parliamentarians, senior public servants and their families are treated fairly by financial institutions. As the Guardian reports, the FCA is telling financial firms to ensure their definition of a PEP (politically exposed person), family member, or close associate is “tightened to the minimum required by law” and not to go beyond that. In light of the FCA’s advice, the FSU will be writing to Tulip Siddiq, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister, to remind her that the amendments to the Payment Services Regulations that we campaigned for enjoyed cross-party support and the present Government should now get on and make them. The fight against politicised Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (‘EDI’) training in the workplace looks set to continue as the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, launches a four-year scheme to ‘embed an inclusive culture’ and reduce ‘microaggressions’ at Transport for London (TfL) – something that is expected to ratchet up a bill close to £2.5m. As the Telegraph highlights, unconscious bias training was scrapped at central government level four years ago after an official review found the courses did not change behaviour or improve workplace equality. Like the Lernaean Hydra, it seems that no sooner do we chop one head off the EDI monster than two more grow back. ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

On Tuesday 9 July, the Free Speech Union was honoured to bring together an expert panel that included whistleblowers Sue Evans and Dr David Bell from the Tavistock Clinic, who risked their careers and much more to pursue the truth. As anticipated, the evening was a unique opportunity for us to learn the core free expression lesson from the Cass Report and the Tavistock scandal: that open inquiry and freedom of speech are essential to protecting us from pernicious ideas. Both Tom and Ben were fortunate enough to attend in person and much of today’s episode is spent pondering the thoughts and threads that resonated with them most strongly. We also discuss a London council’s attempt to label a Bloomsbury monument of Virginia Woolf with a digital tag that highlights her alleged ‘imperialist attitudes’. The story was reported in the Mail and it is heartening to witness Emma Woolf robustly defending her great aunt on Twitter/X: ‘You couldn't make it up. The wokerati of Camden Council have decided that this statue of my great-aunt Virginia Woolf in Bloomsbury needs a QR code to explain her 'offensive' attitudes. Just to be clear, this was a woman born in 1882. Are they expecting her to trot out the Wokery of 2024? Virginia was a feminist, socially progressive, a literary pioneer, politically active (Fabian Society etc), she was way ahead of her time in so many ways’ .  ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.

While the FSU persists in its mission to remain politically non-partisan, we are worried that the new government could bring in laws that criminalise vast swathes of speech. Freddie Attenborough highlights these concerns in an article for our website and we begin today with a discussion around the five primary free expression issues that he identifies: the APPG definition of Islamophobia, Labour’s proposed Race Equality Act, a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, a possible Hate Crime & Public Order Act (England & Wales), and greater restriction on the freedom of the press. In the coming years, we suspect we will need to fight a number of test cases in which we challenge whether the new laws are compatible with our existing legislation, including the Human Rights Act. The reality of the UK’s free speech problem is underlined by our quarterly analysis of FSU casework stats, which is hot off the press. Since our inception in February 2020, we have handled nearly 2,700 cases and, when we know the outcome, we achieve a favourable outcome for our members over 75% of the time. Shockingly, nearly one quarter of the workplace cases that we see lead to initial dismissal or the loss of a working contract (though FSU involvement may ultimately lead to some form of vindication for our member). This highlights how rapidly situations escalate in these fraught times. We end with the good news that, with our help, an FSU member has successfully fought back after being banned from a pub for gender critical views. It is especially chilling to note that this happened to a prospective parliamentary candidate during the UK’s general election campaign, a time when a robust exchange of differing political opinions is surely an essential part of the democratic process.    ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

In January 2024, Amelia Sparrow (not her real name) was dismissed by a Liberal Democrat MP after only three full days in her role of Parliamentary Researcher. She believes this happened because of pressure from the Liberal Democrat Party after she gave voice to her belief that sex is real, immutable and important. Amelia has submitted a claim to the employment tribunal arguing that she was discriminated against and harassed by the Liberal Democrat MP, as well as the Liberal Democrat party and you can support her crowdfunder here. We stick on the theme of courage amongst our young people with the story of a 12-year-old schoolboy who has been investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there 'are only two genders'. The incident was reported in the Mail and is yet another case that reveals the extent of ideological capture within the UK’s education and law enforcement sectors. This particular 12-year-old appears more savvy about dubious ideas such as so-called ‘queer theory’ than many of the establishment higher-ups. We end with a discussion on the statement last week from UN Secretary General on the occasion of the “International Day for Countering Hate Speech”. According to António Guterres, “States have an obligation under international law to prevent and combat incitement to hatred and to promote diversity, mutual understanding and solidarity”. But, as Freddie Attenborough writes in an article for the FSU website, “At the softer end of the spectrum, the term ‘hate speech’ becomes something of a legal misnomer, since what is being referred to are forms of expression that some people or groups may indeed claim to find insulting, upsetting, or offensive, but that nonetheless receive and warrant legal protection”. Freddie continues, “The introduction of this element of subjectivity into the policing of hate speech – the continuing elongation of the spectrum at its softer end, as it were – has not been entirely unintentional, allowing as it does for organisations like the UN to rearticulate what qualifies as ‘hatred’ in their own political interests, thus widening the net of applicability to various individuals and groups whose dissenting views on climate change, mass immigration, and LGBTQ+ issues are ideologically inconvenient”. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

The FSU has reviewed each of the main party manifestos (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Reform) for what they have to say about the five freedoms that we defend: freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. In today’s episode, we compare and contrast the results of our review. Free expression topics covered include Leveson Part 2, conversion therapy, EDI and the murky waters of misinformation and disinformation. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

The Free Speech Fates have woven a Greek thread through today’s episode, starting with the Olympic Games. A 33-page ‘Portrayal Guidelines’ document, published ahead of this summer’s Paris Games, states that a person’s sex is not assigned based on genetics alone. As reported by the Telegraph, the International Olympic Committee has been accused by Martina Navratilova of waging a 1984 version of war on women after asking journalists not to use terms such as “born male” or “biologically male” to describe transgender athletes. It argues that such labels are dehumanising and constitute “problematic language”. Despite the ferocious backlash, Yiannis Exarchos, chief executive of Olympic Broadcasting Services, promised that his team in Paris would use the guidelines as “our Bible”, and “we call on our colleagues across all media to embrace them”. Meanwhile, Greek philosophers are at risk of being scrubbed out of various study courses. A new toolkit for ‘decolonising’ philosophy in secondary schools and universities summarily dismisses canonical western philosophers from Plato and Aristotle through to Descartes and Wittgenstein as ‘dead white males’ who engaged in solipsistic “armchair theorising” and must now make way for more exciting and sophisticated voices from the ‘Global South’ (Mail, Times). The toolkit was drawn up by four undergraduate student interns, working alongside four academic philosophers at SOAS (formerly the School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. We end by discussing our fears around a new form of diversity training, namely ‘plus-size inclusivity training’. Our concerns appear to be shared by oncologist Professor Karol Sikora, who is quoted in the article, “Plus-size inclusivity training is just the sort of nonsense that the senior management in the NHS will make part of the ridiculous politically inspired mandatory training all doctors are forced to do. Please bring back some common sense!”. We couldn’t agree more. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

As reported in the Mail, Durham university last week postponed a debate on whether “Palestinian Leadership is the Biggest Barrier to Peace”. According to the article, a 'mob' of pro-Palestine protesters locked students inside a chamber for more than two hours and created a human chain around the building. Mohab Ramadan, a speaker for the opposition and founder of the university’s Israeli-Palestinian Resolution Society also received a hostile reception when he visited the protesters’ encampment. In response, he told them, “Granting yourself what you’re denying to others is shameful. To deny others the freedom to speak and debate when you yourself have encamped on Palace Green and been tolerated, allowed to speak and be heard by the entire University is unforgivable. I supported you and believed in your cause, arguing passionately for Palestine, but your actions have alienated the very people you seek to persuade”. Interestingly, Durham is at the top of the FSU’s league table of universities with the worst record of defending free speech - we’ve had to defend more students and staff from there than any other university in the UK. Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that university staff in Exeter feel coerced to sign an anti-transphobia pledge. These calls to allyship are reminiscent of the ‘struggle sessions’ that were prevalent during China’s cultural revolution. We end with a tweet about King Alfred that causes us to revisit our discussion on the Anglo Saxons, this time in the context of so-called Queer Theory. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

The Free Speech Union has responded to the Office for Students’ (OfS) consultation on its proposed new guidance for English universities on how best to uphold academic freedom and free speech on campus. Realistically, the OfS’s approach to freedom of speech is likely to be unpopular with universities and, as a result, could face legal challenge. Our response sets out why we think the OfS’s position is legally defensible and how it could be improved. We also discuss the University of Cambridge’s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech, which we believe to be very positive - although the student magazine Varsity appeared less enthused. Sticking with the university world, an article in the Telegraph by an anonymous student caught our eye this week. When it comes to social media use, the writer observes that, “We aren’t posting online because we think we will have a clear impact. We’re doing it because of a huge moral impetus to speak out on issues - whether or not they concern us and whether or not we are familiar with them - and to be ‘right about them’”. The student continues, “The reward? A feedback loop of heart “reacts” and supportive comments, and endless approval in the form of retweets and likes”. In the follow-up discussion, Ben highlights three damaging experiments that have been carried out on our young people in recent years: trans ideology, lockdowns and smartphones. We finish with the new Appendix that we have added to our EDI Tax briefing paper. It runs through two egregious examples of EDI training, both highlighted to us by concerned FSU members. The first is a mandatory training course for any Amazon employees with supervisory responsibilities. It is produced by ‘Glamazon’, the company’s internal LGBT+ affinity group. The second is a guide produced by The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, a professional association, that’s intended for all speech and language therapists, as well as support workers and students. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

The first quarter of 2024 was the FSU’s busiest yet for free speech case work and we begin by reflecting on what insight this gives us into the state of cancel culture in the UK. Moving to the global scale, The Guardian last week revealed the headlines from Article 19’s Global Expression Report 2024. According to the analysis, more than half of the world’s population cannot speak freely. We dig into the statistics for the UK and focus on the troubling longer-term trends revealed by the analysis. Over the last ten years or so, the UK has fallen from the mid-range of the ‘open’ category to the bottom with a score of 81. But we are not alone. Article 19’s report reveals how over the last decade, 6.2 billion people across 78 countries experienced a deterioration of their freedom of expression while only 303 million people across 18 countries saw improvement. We end with an article published in Spiked by one of the FSU’s founding directors and Advisory Council member, Inaya Folarin Iman. She argues that instead of claiming that hate-speech laws are being weaponised against ethnic-minority Britons, outlets such as Channel 4 News ought to do more questioning of the need for hate-speech laws in the first place. As Inaya says in the article, “If you call for censorship of so-called hate speech, it will eventually be used against you”, before concluding that “the moral of the story is that we should do away with all hate-speech laws”. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.

Ben spoke at the launch of SEEN (Sex Equality and Equity Network) in Parliament last week and made the point that the FSU has handled over 700 cases relating to gender critical beliefs. It’s perhaps not surprising, therefore, that sex and gender feature in our first main item. The Telegraph reports how civil servant and FSU member Eleanor Frances is crowdfunding to pay for an employment tribunal against two government departments on several grounds, including indirect discrimination based on her philosophical beliefs. Jill Levene, FSU legal counsel, is quoted in the article, “Eleanor’s treatment is a clear example of a civil service that has been captured by radical progressive ideology”. This week, the FSU also helped out in the academic world. Senior administrators at Cardiff University decided a panel discussion on ‘Academic Freedom in the UK’ wasn’t an ‘internal’ event, leaving organisers scrambling to find £1,500 to pay for security and venue hire. We were able to step in via our Mactaggart Programme and stump up the cash so the event can go ahead. Next up, an article by Ed West in The Spectator caught our eye. It exposes the ongoing attempts to erase the Anglo-Saxons, which includes, for example, the renaming of the “International Society of Anglo-Saxonists” to the rather less evocative, “International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England”. Such tactics will be familiar to anyone au fait with the ambition of the ideologues to interpret our history through the dismal prism of “whiteness”, “privilege” and “decolonisation”. We end with the case of Professor Nana Sato-Rossberg and the refreshing news that we are allowed to make enthusiastic comments about a person’s country of origin. In reaching its conclusion, the Employment Tribunal panel said that it had “reminded itself” of the following passage from Justice Underhill’s ruling in Richmond Pharmacology Ltd v Dhaliwal [2009] IRLR 336: “Dignity is not necessarily violated by things said or done which are trivial or transitory, particularly if it should have been clear that any offence was unintended. Whilst it is very important that employers and tribunals are sensitive to the hurt that can be caused by offensive comments or conduct (which are related to protected characteristics)… it is also important not to encourage a culture of hypersensitivity or the imposition of legal liability in respect of every unfortunate phrase.” ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.