Pax Britannica

We kick off today’s episode exploring the free speech concerns raised in our latest briefing paper on Carbon Literacy Training (interestingly termed ‘Carbon Emergency Training’ by one of the Scottish certified training organisations, ‘Keep Scotland Beautiful’). We fear that CLT may soon embed a further layer of politicisation within the British workplace, hot on the heels of the free speech damage already wrought by equity, diversity & inclusion policies. The extent of self-censorship amongst staff is likely to be intensified where an employer is aggressively seeking accreditation as a higher grade (silver and above) ‘Carbon Literate Organisation’. In such a company, carbon literacy is expected to be included in employees’ performance goals and annual assessment. We would be very interested to hear the views and experiences of any listeners who may have undergone CLT (contact Tom at thomas@freespeechunion.org). Our next item is the important case of Almut Gadow whose case with the Open University concerns fundamental issues of academic freedom. Almut Gadow’s crowd funder has certainly hit a nerve with our supporters and we are immensely grateful to everyone who has contributed thus far. Finally, we explore the issues raised by Denmark’s putting forward of a law to ban the burning of the Koran and other religious texts. We draw on some of the data in our case work and wonder whether authorities are more concerned with the new Pax Britannica than the right to religious expression, including the right to blaspheme.