Undue Diligence

This week’s episode was recorded just three days after the appalling terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas. It was only right to begin, therefore, with some thoughts on the nature of the media coverage, especially the apparent insistence of the BBC to avoid the use of the word ‘terrorist’ –where even Labour’s David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary said on Sunday, “I don’t mince my words. I’m a lawyer by trade. Hamas is a terrorist organisation”.  We move on to discuss the due diligence policies applied by government departments to vet external speakers at government organised events. It appears that social media ‘dossiers’ have been collected on various speakers across multiple fields of expertise, a tactic lifted straight from 1984’s ministry of truth. There is some very exciting news to report following FSU Advisory Council member Professor Eric Kaufmann’s move to Buckingham university. He is creating a new Centre for Heterodox Social Science – or what the Mail, getting down to brass tacks as ever, describes as a “faculty for common sense”. At the same time, Britain’s new free speech tsar, Professor Arif Ahmed, has made a powerful speech outlining the importance of a diverse set of views in the academic sphere.  A promise at conservative conference last week from Steve Barclay, the health secretary, that sex-specific language will be restored in the NHS is welcome news, although history suggests that we should wait and see what this means in practice. It was encouraging, though, to hear a discussion between Andrew Boff (who was removed from the conference auditorium for alleged heckling) and Andrew Doyle on Free Speech Nation. We ponder whether so much of the toxicity around the area of gender identity ideology has arisen from an almost complete absence of meaningful debate. There is much to look forward to in the world of FSU events and we encourage all listeners to visit our events page for more information about the events we discuss at the end of the podcast.