Free Speech & Cancel Culture

Police Scotland is grappling with potential budgetary pressures and service reductions. David Threadgold of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has raised concerns about the financial impact of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. According to him, the legislation has already led to an overload of calls, with over 6,000 logged since its enactment.

Threadgold's worry centers on the unforeseen costs of handling these cases, particularly the overtime payments for control room staff. He believes these expenses will reverberate throughout the year, affecting other police services. Calum Steele, former general secretary of the SPF, echoes these concerns. As reported by The Scotsman, Steele criticized Police Scotland's preparation for the Act, calling it negligently unprepared and pointing out that the additional costs were predictable.

The legislation's impact extends beyond financial strains. The Act has resulted in a notable rise in the logging of non-crime hate incidents, incidents perceived as hateful but not necessarily criminal. This increase has prompted concerns about a potential inundation of trivial or malicious complaints, especially in the context of highly charged events like football matches. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has already lodged a complaint over a tweet he posted being logged as a hate incident.

Scotland's disgraceful new hate crime law has come into force that will undoubtedly restrict free speech and give power to those wih a scores to settle regardless of the merits of their claims.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of stirring up hatred relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of seven years. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics.

The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes insulting behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was likely rather than intended.

As well as the offence of stirring up hatred, the Hate Crime Act also consolidates the existing law on crimes which are aggravated by prejudice. These are where an offender demonstrates malice or ill-will towards their victim based on a protected characteristic, which can be taken into account by a sheriff or judge with a longer sentence or a higher fine than would otherwise have been the case. This is the first time that age has been included in the list of protected characteristics for aggravated offences, a move welcomed by some campaign groups.

Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at Glasgow University, and a former Conservative MSP, voted against the bill because it could see someone convicted of stirring up hatred for a comment they make in private in their own home, not just in public, and I just don't think that's where the criminal law belongs.

Susan Smith of For Women Scotland fears those who are investigated under the new law will have their lives upended.  She told BBC News:

The tests are quite woolly and we don't know how people are going to interpret this. We do anticipate that there will be a lot of malicious complaints, a lot of rather trivial complaints and potentially people who are investigated will see their lives upended. I imagine there will be many complaints, for example, made against JK Rowling.

Ch Supt Rob Hay of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS), which represents senior officers, said there was the potential for a huge uplift in complaints about social media posts. And as is so often the case, the police have sided with complainers and have pledged to investigate every hate crime complaint it receives.

BBC News understands that these will be assessed by a dedicated team within Police Scotland including a number of hate crime advisers to assist officers in determining what, if any, action to take.

Ofcom has tried to explain how it twists its rules to try and claim that politicians commenting on news are somehow 'newsreaders'. Ofcom writes:

This document sets out Ofcom's Decisions on five cases involving politicians acting as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters on television.

Our Broadcasting Code requires that broadcast news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality, and that a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.

Ofcom recognises that, in accordance with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters have editorial freedom and can offer audiences a wide range of programme formats, including using politicians as presenters. Politicians can present current affairs programmes and they may appear in broadcast news content as an interviewee or any other type of guest, provided they are not used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter (unless there is exceptional editorial justification), and the programme otherwise complies with the Code.

Ofcom considered that five programmes raised issues warranting investigation under our due impartiality rules. These were two editions of Jacob Rees-Mogg's State of the Nation and Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one edition of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast on GB News in May and June 2023.

Ofcom found that these five programmes breached the Code for the reasons set out in full in each corresponding Decision. Politicians acted as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter in sequences which constituted news for the purposes of Section Five of the Code, without exceptional justification, and news was therefore not presented with due impartiality.

Ofcom considered that the programmes in question were both news and current affairs programmes. Programmes can feature a mix of news and non-news content and move between the two. However, if a licensee chooses to use a politician as a presenter, it must take steps to ensure they do not act as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter.

We are also publishing our reasons for deciding that a sixth programme, a separate edition of Jacob Rees-Mogg's State of the Nation, did not raise issues warranting investigation under these rules, in order to provide broadcasters with an example of what constitutes exceptional editorial justification as allowed by Rule 5.3.

The rationale for the restriction on politicians acting as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters is clear 203 politicians represent a political party or position and are therefore inherently partial on topical issues. Ofcom's Decisions also recognise the special status of broadcast news, which is afforded additional statutory protections because of its fundamental importance in a democratic society.

GB News has not previously breached Rules 5.1 or 5.3. These five programmes were broadcast in May and June 2023 and we have only had reason to open one further investigation into GB News' programming under these rules since we opened these investigations1. GB News is on notice that any repeated breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction.

 

Offsite Comment: Ofcom's patrician war on GB News

See article from spiked-online.com by Andrew Tettenborn

The Ofcom ruling is perplexing, not least as the shows in question actually tried very carefully to separate their news and current-affairs output. News bulletins were delivered by a news anchor, always deadpan, at fixed intervals and in a dedicated studio. This was then followed by free-wheeling discussions of the day's stories, led by the politician presenters.

This didn't matter, according to Ofcom. A presenter repeating the facts of the news or mentioning a breaking story was apparently enough to make him or her a newsreader. What's more, whether these politicians actually expressed biased views on air or not was deemed immaterial. As politicians, they would have been perceived as biased, and that's what counts, says Ofcom.

This ruling will have profound repercussions for broadcasting, well beyond GB News. Ofcom won't admit it, but any shows about current affairs that tend to be heavy on opinion will in practice now count as news and hence be liable to vetting for their perceived partiality.

See full article from spiked-online.com

The word ['nigger'] has been excised from the film I regard as the pinnacle of British cinema, Kind Hearts and Coronets. In a crucial scene, the about-to-be-hanged murderer and his mistress quote the traditional version of the rhyme Eeny, meeny, miny, moe: it is the moment when he realises that she knows he has murdered several members of his family, and might just murder his wife, too, if the mistress can have him reprieved. A TV channel on which I recently rewatched the film eliminated this exchange, rather than show a warning that it includes racially offensive language.

It is patronising to assume most of us don't know that the past is a foreign country; that they did things then that we are enlightened enough not to do now. Otherwise, Bowdler-like, we shall according to the latest obsession falsify whatever parts of our heritage culture warriors take exception to. We can't go through life without being offended; but we can and should present our cultural past honestly and in context, and explain the importance of its integrity.