It must come as shock to be aggressively banned from visiting a weird little country when you weren't planning to anyway...Yes, it's probably true that many Brits aren't really in favour of free speech since so many would also come out with the "I'm all for free speech, but..." line without having considered that the last word invalidates the rest of them. Perhaps more are waking up to this since free speech has been so badly eroded by
This, in essence, is what has happened to the US “shock jock” Michael Savage with his inclusion on a list of people banned from the UK by Jacqui Smith...
...bizarrely and probably by accident, I think Ms Smith might have a point. It's just that she's so spinelessly useless at making it.
“Of course,” she'll bleat, “we're not against free speech, but...” Stop it. Grow some balls. Yes you are against free speech. Almost all Brits are. It's in our nature.
So when journos like Hugo Rifkind point out that there really isn't free speech in the UK I'm generally glad that the issue is being discussed. And I still am even though Rifkind goes on to say that he's really anti free speech himself.
Personally I'm quite proud that Britain won't put up with this sort of thing. And that's just me. I barely believe in anything. So what's wrong with Ms Smith? Did you hear her on the TV news? A morass of drivel. “Fallen into the category of blah blah, intercommunity waffle waffle.” And this from a woman who has supposedly devoted her life to the progressive Labour movement. Where's the passion? Where's the fire? Where's the courage in her supposed convictions? Where's the bit where she thumps her chest and says, “yes, this man is vile, damn right we'll turn him away at passport control”?I can only hope he's joking, because otherwise I have to say that while I defend his right to oppose free speech I disagree with what he's saying. And I hope that he falls out of a window and that his fall is broken rather inefficiently by Jacqboot Smith's brain.