That’s Debatable!

Who Governs Britain?

We begin today’s episode by pondering some interesting parallels between last week’s letter from Dame Caroline Dinenage requesting on-line platforms to consider demonetising Russell Brand and the long but  fascinating history of Acts of Attainder. Dame Caroline’s letter was discussed at length by Ben on GB News last week. We move on to an important victory for the FSU and one of our members. Colonel (retired) Dr Kelvin Wright has been cleared after he was investigated for sharing a Facebook post stating that ‘men cannot be women’. Following this positive outcome, Dr Wright commented that, while he has been vindicated, “the Army has a systemic problem where gender critical opinions are concerned. I want to ensure that nobody can be put through the type of process I’ve just endured”; the Army is much the poorer for the loss of a man like him. Following the publication last week of a staff letter that warns of a ‘woke takeover’ across the civil service, we are rather left wondering, in the words of Ted Heath, “Who Governs Britain?”. After a brief interlude to discuss the new Online Safety Bill (thank you to all our members who have worked with us to strike out its most egregious elements) we finish the episode on a positive note: the apology statement written by Rethinking Education in the aftermath of its cancellation of director of Don’t Divide Us, Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert.

Year Zero

Frequent listeners to ‘That’s Debatable’ will remember our interview with Sibyl Ruth from the end of August (you can listen to that episode here). We are very pleased to announce that Sibyl’s case has now been settled and Cornerstones has issued an apology to Sibyl. The apology recognises that Sibyl holds gender critical feminist beliefs, that she is “entitled to these views even if Cornerstones does not share aspects of those views” and that these are “worthy of respect in a democratic society”. Sibyl has posted an update to her crowd funder page to share the news of her settlement and apology and to thank the FSU and her legal team for all the work they’ve done on her case. During our podcast discussion with Sibyl, we discussed the removal or relocation of allegedly contentious books in UK libraries. That idea now seems to have been taken to an extreme in a Canadian public high school. CBC reported this week that all books published prior to 2008 (seemingly the new ‘Year Zero’) have been removed by Peel District School Board amid confusion around a new equity-based ‘weeding’ process. The photo in the article looks like it’s been extracted directly from the ‘dystopian fiction’ section of a library (though we can’t confirm this, since that section no longer contains any books). Our conversation expands to ponder some of the broader free speech woes facing Canada, including the apparent politicisation of the professions as reported by Jordan Peterson. Finally, we discuss a very interesting analysis completed by the group ‘Alumni for Free Speech’ on free speech at our leading universities. Their analysis, which includes a detailed spreadsheet with all the data from their various Freedom of Information requests, shows that around 214 times as much money appears to be being spent by these universities on EDI as on free speech protection.

Losing My Religion

It’s a couple of weeks now since the public berating of Róisín Murphy for expressing (in a private Facebook post) her concern with some of the more extreme elements of transgender ideology. At around the time that Róisín’s story was dominating the free speech news, Tom was fortunate enough to catch the final night of ‘The Crucible’ at London’s Gielgud theatre. In that context, we take the opportunity in this week’s episode to revisit the ideas of blasphemy and the parallels between contemporary ideological wars and the witch trials of the 17th century. The topic quite naturally moves on to a discussion of how a deeper understanding of religion, and Christianity in particular, might offer us a path through some of our problems. 

Unsafe Spaces

This week we celebrate another significant victory for the FSU! Carl Borg-Neal, 57, was unfairly dismissed and subject to disability discrimination when Lloyds Bank sacked him for using a racial slur during a workplace-based diversity training session. He came to the FSU for help and, following the first-class support of Doyle Clayton at employment tribunal, Carl is now likely to recover a significant sum for damages. Not for the first time, at the heart of the incident was a supposed ‘safe space’ during training that turned out to be anything but. In our discussion we ponder the ever-changing groups of allowable words and banned words. How are ordinary citizens meant to keep up with such rapidly shifting cultural sands? We move onto a very worrying case in Finland. Päivi Räsänen, a former politician, is on trial for hate speech after defending traditional marriage. This follows a 2019 police decision that she had committed no crime and a 2022 acquittal by judges in her first trial. We initially consider the implications of Päivi’s case for free speech across Europe, before moving on to discuss the origins of hate speech, wondering how the concept has come to define such a large piece of our cultural discourse, for both citizens and institutions. What is the line between hate speech, thought crime and even, in an Irish context, pre-crime?

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.

In Conversation with Sibyl Ruth

In early 2022, Sibyl Ruth was working for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy as one of their ‘core editors’. Odd things began to happen in May when she was informed that her client no longer required her services. Sibyl then found out that her profile had been removed from the Cornerstones Editors’ page. The next thing she knew, the company had halted any work that Sibyl was doing for them and had effectively terminated her. Ultimately a Subject Access Request revealed that a member of staff had objected to Sibyl’s gender critical views as expressed on Twitter. This was a total shock for Sibyl since, although she is a principled and proud feminist, she has always been open to discussion, debate and compromise; but her termination by Cornerstones was sudden and brutal. On the advice of friends, Sibyl contact the Free Speech Union where she quickly realised that that she wasn’t alone and that this was part of a larger pattern; what listeners will recognise immediately as cancel culture or, in this case, the new ‘purification’ of the publishing world. Towards the end of our conversation, and following the controversy at Calderdale library services, we touch on the latest trend of certain local authorities hiding books that don’t align with current ideology. Sibyl provides some helpful context to the phenomenon, explaining how library workers are often caught in a bind (pun intended!) where customer facing staff may be left to cope with little to no relevant training. If any listeners would like to support Sibyl, then do visit her crowd funder. As Sibyl emphasises during the episode, she is hugely grateful to every single person who has helped her in this campaign.

Woke, Ltd

Woke privilege” is a phrase coined by a listener to describe ‘those who follow the woke orthodoxy and experience all the privileges of not being cancelled’. People with Woke Privilege are free to express their woke opinions, they’re lauded online, and work promotions generally come easily to them. We would posit that Woke Privilege has certainly found a comfortable home within the B Corp movement, which features in today’s episode following the publication of the FSU’s latest report, Woke, Ltd. We discuss our motivation for writing the report and why we are so concerned that the proliferation of B Corps could have some very deleterious effects on freedom of expression, especially if the so-called Better Business Act reaches the statute books. This week, a video of West Yorkshire police arresting a 16-year-old autistic girl has caused profound discomfort across the nation. We discuss how it can be that the police can have reached a place where a child’s exclamation that an officer ‘looks like my lesbian nana’ can trigger such an apparently disproportionate response (though we concede that the video may not provide a complete picture). Over the last two years or so, West Yorkshire police has featured in at least another four public incidents relating to freedom of expression. It would seem that we have found a very good candidate for some of that training we discussed in the FSU’s previous report.

In Conversation With Sharron Davies

It’s a cliché, but Sharron Davies MBE really needs no introduction. One of Britain’s greatest Olympic medallists, she dominated women’s swimming throughout the 1980s. As Sharron makes clear during this discussion, her new book, Unfair Play: The Battle for Women’s Sport  was written to give people the knowledge and power to fight back against the incredible level of unfairness that women and girls are facing across the sporting world. Having experienced the injustice of competing against the doped-up East German swimmers in the 1970s and 80s, Sharron understands first-hand what it means to operate at the most elite level possible yet face a profoundly unfair field. She quickly discerned the disastrous decisions that were being made in the 2000s by sporting authorities, starting with the removal of sex screening by the IOC (International Olympic Committee). In our discussion, we explore the major themes explored in the book, including the emergence of a new incarnation of virtue-signalling misogyny, the fundamental importance of empiricism, and the heart-breaking effect that today’s unfairness is having on women and girls. Sharron passionately believes in the life-affirming impact of sport and that it should be for all; we simply need to define our categories in a way that makes participation fair. Both Sharron and the Free Speech Union were delighted that the generosity of one of our Founder Members, Alan Hearne, has made it possible for copies of the book to be sent to over 80 national and international sporting bodies. The accompanying letters either congratulate those which have already taken notice of the evidence and taken steps to protect the female competitive category or urged them to read the book and re-open debate if they have yet to do so.

Gillian Philip stands with JK Rowling

#IstandwithJKRowling. When Gillian Philip, a successful children’s author, added that statement to her twitter handle in June 2020, she soon found herself subject to a twitter pile on. The mob accused Gillian of being “transphobic” and a “TERF” (standing for trans-exclusionary radical feminist) – the latter a familiar slur so easily thrown around by transgender activists. Soon afterwards, her publishers, Working Partners and Harper Collins, cancelled their contract with her. Inevitably, this experience of cancel culture took a huge personal toll on Gillian, but she was determined to fight back! As so often happens, the activists didn’t fully appreciate the risk of going up against such a focused, tenacious, and strong woman as Gillian.

The Bankers Go Woke (Say it carefully)

We open our episode with the encouraging thought that the UK’s free speech woes repeatedly drive us back to hear and be inspired by the voice (and music!) of past genius. Then the big news item of the week is the FSU’s ‘de-banking’ victory. As many listeners already know, the government will now be tightening up the Payment Services Regulations to make it impossible for banks and payment processors to cancel people’s accounts just because they disagree with their perfectly lawful political belief. During our conversation, we focus on the elements of this very public discussion that have most intrigued us. Why do some commentators seem unable to appreciate the threat that de-banking represents to all UK citizens across the political spectrum? Ben introduces the idea of cognitive decoupling, which may go some way to explain the alternative reactions. The principle of Chesterton’s Fence is another helpful tool with which to interpret some of the more disastrous applications of woke ideology. As we wonder whether all this de-banking publicity will lead to a retreat or advance of woke ideology, we touch on Lord Frost’s recent article in the Telegraph that describes an ominous new state ideology.