Today we take a slightly different tack and explore the 1999 film ‘The Matrix’, which imparts a deep well-spring of metaphors for describing cancel culture. In addition to being an action-packed blockbuster, the movie touches on philosophical ideas from such luminaries as Lewis Carroll, René Descartes, Plato and Immanuel Kant. Moving on to looming …

FSU General Secretary, Toby Young, was nearly abducted last week by the infamous Hate Monster during a visit to Scotland. Video footage shows Toby finally triumphing over the beast, which he describes as “a cartoon creature that looks like a hairy pepperoni”. The Pepperoni of Hate would doubtless approve of VisitBritain’s latest language guide. As …

We whizz through a couple of this week’s free speech headlines today before providing listeners with an update on Linzi Smith’s case against Newcastle United and the Premier League, a story which has now been picked up by the BBC. Linzi is crowdfunding to assist with her next legal stage under the relevant pre-action protocol. This is a David and G…

Toby Young has written a sobering piece in this week’s Spectator, surveying speech-restricting laws in the works across the world, from Poland to Canada – the latter threatening to establish a form of speech precrime. While it is troubling to see how far free expression has dropped down the priority list of governments, Toby ends with a call to pra…

One of our recurring bugbears is the imperious messaging that has seeped into all corners of British society, lecturing us on what to think and say as we go about our business. A current TV advertising campaign against ageism is a case in point. No-one wants people of different ages to be excluded from society, but it is rather galling to be slappe…

As Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act comes to the end of its first week, the number of ‘hate crimes’ reported to Police Scotland has ticked over the 8,000 mark. This was entirely predictable and no doubt reflects a combination of reporting by those keen to make use of the act’s censorious powers and mischievous attempts at exposing its alm…

By the time this episode of ‘That’s Debatable!’ is released, the not-so-new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act will have come into force. We mark the occasion with a dive into an excellent piece by a concerned Scot, writing under the pseudonym C.J. Strachan. The article reaches back to 17th century Scottish history – the case of Thomas Aike…

We’re in Jules Verne’s hands today as we travel around the woke world, from East Sussex in England to Scotland, the USA, the EU, China and beyond. We begin, though, with some research from Finland that was cited on X by Rolf Degen. He remarks on two large studies that suggest high critical social justice attitude scales are linked to anxiety, depre…

It's the first birthday of ‘That’s Debatable!’. We hope listeners will indulge us as we take a moment at the beginning of today's episode to look back over one or two of the segments from the last twelve months that have particularly resonated. First up on today’s main menu, however, is the ‘Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act’, which will n…

As reported in the Telegraph and in detail on our website, University College London (UCL) has now launched an investigation into its decision to ban academic and FSU member Michelle Shipworth from teaching a “provocative” course involving China in order to protect its commercial interests. The twists and turns in the story are quite breathtaking a…

The FSU has published an essay by Tim Dieppe (Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern) with a Foreword by Professor Richard Dawkins. Tim argues that any attempt to define ‘Islamophobia’ will have a chilling effect on free speech – and we agree. The dystopian graphic at the top of the paper underlines the point that if society were to accept the …

Many listeners will already be familiar with the name of Freddie Attenborough, the FSU’s Communications Officer, who joins us for today’s episode. Freddie writes our weekly newsletter, pens numerous free speech related articles and stoically mans the FSU’s social media fort twenty-four hours a day. It was great to have him with us, particularly in …

Since its establishment in March 2023, the Ian Mactaggart Programme has provided generous financial support to a range of free speech initiatives among young people. One particularly exciting project is the inaugural ‘Modern Dissent’ lecture. This will be given by Professor Eric Kaufmann, FSU Advisory Council member and Head of the Centre for Heter…

There is a lot going on behind the scenes at the Royal Society of Literature (RSL), as reported this week in The Times and written up in detail on the FSU website. Several current fellows of the RSL, including three former presidents, say that the organisation’s refusal to take public stands on authors Kate Clanchy and Sir Salman Rushdie has called…

Our first story, which was reported in The Telegraph over the weekend, has hit a nerve with the nation. Millions have now watched the short video put together by Toby Young with Newcastle United fan – and FSU member – Linzi Smith. During an investigation into Linzi’s perfectly lawful gender critical tweets, NUFC asked the Premier League to scrutini…

‘Britain isn’t a free country’. That’s the title of a recent Spectator article by Ed West and we fear he could be onto something. At the very least, it seems that we are no longer as sure of our freedoms as we used to be. All is not lost, though! The FSU’s success rate on cases now stands at nearly 75%, proving that it is possible to resist cancel …

We welcome Bryn Harris, the FSU’s chief legal counsel, to‘That's Debatable!’ this week. He discusses his own personal journey to the FSU together with the broader work of our legal team. Bryn also offers up his general thoughts on what kind of fundamental legal change(s) might be most effective in pushing the UK’s speech pendulum back in favour of …

Using freedom of information requests, the Free Speech Union has been investigating the transgender policies of various public sector bodies, but the document released by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s privacy watchdog, is one of the most egregious we have found. The story was carried by the Daily Mail and it's where we begin…

It’s been a very exciting start to 2024 at the Free Speech Union where we have been celebrating one of our biggest ever wins, the case of FSU member Carl Borg-Neal. At least £500,000 in damages is now expected to be paid out to Carl by his former employer, Lloyds Bank. As reported in The Telegraph, an employment tribunal has unanimously ruled Carl’…

Happy New Year to all our listeners! We begin with some good news from the Spectator. An article penned by Fraser Nelson, the magazine’s editor, reveals the pressure he came under to cancel Professor Karol Sikora’s appearance at a panel discussion on Britain’s cancer crisis. As Fraser explains, the event sponsor, which had been teed up to contribut…

For our final episode of 2023 we zoom in on the higher education sector, where the Office for Students has just published proposals on its complaints process under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. As reported in The Independent, universities, colleges and student unions in England which fail to uphold free speech duties are set to be n…

In the world of free speech, it often feels like we take two half-steps forward followed by a troubling leap backwards, and today’s line-up fits that mould. Last week’s infamous US Congress hearings in which the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn were seen prevaricating over whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” went against their institution…

Now that the doors on our Advent calendars are being opened with alarming rapidity, we take the opportunity to discuss two seasonally related topics: books for Christmas and the cultural importance of our calendar. 2023 has served up a cornucopia of thoughtful free speech related volumes, tackling issues ranging from misinformation and AI, through …

There is little doubt that last week’s FSU panel debate on ‘free speech and the right to protest in the current moment’ was an essential conversation for us to be having in these unsettling times. For those who missed it, the recording is available here. Our expert legal guests deftly laid out the distinctive elements of both public order law and t…

There was some good news coming out of Exeter University this week, where Ben (alongside Peter Bleksley) successfully debated for the motion, “This house regrets the rise of woke culture”. The final result was 84/71, but the vote divided starkly across the sexes with almost all of the women voting against. This particular ‘tendency to woke’ amongst…