Funnily enough, those who’ve said this is a cynical grab for ratings probably reckon without the British public’s desire to watch ballroom dancing or Coronation Street as opposed to a somewhat nutty president of a Middle Eastern country.

If it’s been said once it’s been said x number of times, where x probably stands for any number you want it to. Creating a big hoo-hah will give it more publicity than just the initial number of viewers would have done.

You may not agree with him. I don’t. But then I don’t write in and complain every time something I’m not a fan of comes on the TV. Rather than jumping up and down and shouting “Ban it. I don’t like him. Not fair!” why doesn’t somebody actually fire back with a few witty reposites that neatly take apart his arguments. Just a thought, like.

And, as Tim W says, “you’d be hard put to find any Church of England bishop who would disagree with what is said (rather than the man who is saying it or his attitudes or actions outside this particular statement).”

Final word: Sunny from Pickled Politics, who I don’t normally agree with:

“I don’t burn a candle for Ahmedinejad – he is clearly a tyrant and a racist. But there’s two fronts on which I find arguments against this C4 stunt a bit hypocritical.

1) The first is this threat that Channel 4’s funding should be cut or curtailed because of this. BBC News reports:

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a member of the all-party media group, said: “Channel Four has given a platform to a man who wants to annihilate Israel and continues to persecute Christians at Christmas time. “This raises serious questions about whether Channel 4 should receive an increased public subsidy for their programmes.”

Criticise Channel 4 all you like, but I find it fundamentally undemocratic that a broadcaster should be threatened financially for doing things the majority don’t like.

I thought these people wanted free speech? After all, MA isn’t saying anything racially inflammatory this time. Should I be burning my license fee in protest everytime the BBC invite Nick Griffin on television?”

Peace on earth and goodwill to all men and all that.

In other news, I got a recipe book for over 400 soups for Christmas. That’s far more exciting.

Hope everybody’s had a safe, happy Christmas. Normal service about where the media’s going and all that jazz, plus a few odds and sods on football teams you’ve never heard of, resumes later.

But this viral that No2ID have produced is powerful, frightening and so easily close to being a reality. It makes its point well without resorting to going over the top, and neatly counters the “if you’ve done nothing wrong then you’ve nothing to fear” argument.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JqlvnZANA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

ID cards scare me, especially given the government’s record in data retention and civil liberties. And the public discourse around them has been rubbish, frankly. Hopefully one day MPs will realise that Minority Report and 1984 were meant to be fictional visions of a dystopian future, not a training manual.

I don’t hold out much hope.

*scurries back to t’interweb to talk more about blogging and Twitter and journalism*

Hazel Blears’ speech on blogging and the internet is a prime example of a politician just simply not getting how social media works, but there’s also a couple of interesting points in there. We’ll come to those later, but chief amongst the proclamations is this gem:

“But mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy.

“Until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.”

Christ alone knows exactly what she’s on about here when she talks about ‘adding value’. Blogs that are on message? That agree with the government line? That don’t insult politicians?

Maybe I’ve missed the point, but I always thought blogging allowed new voices (anybody can start a blog and get involved), new ideas, legitimate protest and challenge. I thought that was blogging in a nutshell, and one of the joys about it – that it encouraged new ideas, and developed those ideas through comment and discussion.

If you’re interested in politics, you can still start a blog even if you’ve got no connection to any political party or come from a particularly political background. Which, given that she’s also trying to get more people from outside the political class involved in politics (one thing I do agree with her on), you’d have thought would be an ideal place to start to look to re-engage a cynical public.

As for the cynicism and despair, then perhaps Blears best look closer to home. It’s difficult not to be cynical and despair of large swathes of what this government does. Not that either of the other two parties seem a great deal better, but the cynicism, despair and malaise set in long ago. Blogs mainly reflect that. If blogging had been around on a large scale back in 1997, it would have been no surprise if an outgoing Tory minister had uttered similar words.

She does, however, raise an interesting point when she says:

“Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?”

It’s not a completely daft hypothesis, even if the main blogs she mentions – Gudio, Iain Dale, etc – are hardly representative of all political blogs. They just happen to be the ones that, rightly or wrongly, get the most mentions in the mainstream media.

There’s also plenty of left-leaning blogs who are also fed up with this government, as Unity points out:

“It’s all very well flagging up that its only around half a dozen right-wing blogs, at most, who’ve been putting up the big traffic numbers and suggesting that this is ’simply anti-establishment’ and due to blogging having emerged only during the period in which Labour has been in office, but if that’s what she’s thinking then how does she account for the fact that most of the leading liberal and left-wing blogs are equally anti-establishment across a range of key issues from Iraq through to the government’s near-constant assaults on civil liberties and the systematic construction of the database state.

The problem that the current government has isn’t that there’s a general lack of popular or influential left-of-centre blogs, its that its policies on Iraq, etc. cost it the support of the vast majority of major players in the left-of-centre blogosphere, most of whom are at least semi-detached from the Labour Party if not operating fully within a broad ‘independent left’ category.”

It’s telling that when you compare the attitude of British politicians to the internet with their American counterparts, we come across as a lot less enlightened. Hell, a large part of Barack Obama’ success was built on the fact he managed to mobilise support online across the country:

“You know the executives that balk at implementing social media campaigns, well Barack Obama and John McCain showed that social media is no passing fad. Both candidates embraced blogs, social networks and Web video

***

The Obama campaign created a social network, MyBarackObama, on its official Web site. Members of that network at times criticized the candidate over his various positions.”

So while Obama, and the 72-year-old John McCain were busy getting their message out online, listening to their core support and, if necessary, modifying policies, this government is busy looking for more ways to regulate the internet and follow every part of our lives online.

Is it any wonder that this country is a bit disillusioned with politics, especially online, when it can look across at America and see how politicians are actually trying to engage with voters? As I’ve said, had this been 1997, there’s a good chance we could have been seeing a similar reaction to Tony Blair as we have to Barack Obama.

Tom Watson’s mentioned in the article. Although I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of his politics, I do wish his own party would look at what he’s doing online and even consult him occasionally on any policies towards the internet, as he’s one of the (sadly) very few MPs who seem to remotely get social media.

The story, which circulated earlier in the week, brought a predictable amount of sarcasm from Twitter users (or at least the ones on my stream). It’s quite possible they use Twitter – and Facebook and MySpace and other social media communities.

But, especially with Twitter, even with locked updates, they’re hardly the most secure of sites to if you’re planning another 9/11. Given that marketing and PR professionals are pretty good at trawling these kind of sites for relevant users, you’d like to think it isn’t beyond the police force to do the same.

But what’s worrying isn’t necessarily the thought that Twitter could be used to blow us up (and I’m sure they’ve got plenty of other methods of communication that a microblogging service used by geeks, PRs and early adopters). No, it’s the fact that we’re seeing a lot more of these kind of stories just as the government is making ever more frequent noises about internet regulation.

Much of the coverage is fairly unquestioning – possibly because it ticks a couple of fashionable news angles, in fear and an emerging new fad. But a lot of it is built on pure speculation. Take these paragraphs from the BBC article [1]:

“A chapter on Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter notes that first reports of the Los Angeles earthquake in July appeared on the service before established news outlets.“

And the relevance of this is?

“Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operational tool.”

Indeed they could. Note use of word theoretically.

“Authorities in both the US and the UK are increasingly worried about the potential for terrorists to use the latest communication technologies including sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and gaming networks.”

And that neatly encapsulates what I’m on about.

There’s no doubt that there are some Very Bad People using the internet – people who it’s a good thing the authorities are monitoring. But – and at this stage it’s difficult to find a decent set of words without somebody going ‘paranoid much?’ – there’s an awful lot of rhetoric flying around about the need for regulation on the internet.

We’ve already had Culture Secretary Andy Burnham call for a debate on regulation, a similar call from Ofcom’s outgoing chief, and plans to tap into pretty much all of our data online.

Quite aside from the fact that trying to regulate the internet – and the noises are sufficiently vague enough to leave little clue as to what form this would take and how they’d go about it, although that’s never normally been a problem for politicians before – is nigh-on impossible, it’s also debatable how much of a public desire there is for it.

So, we’re seeing a set of arguments being deployed that politicians usually bring out in these kind of situations:

1. Terrorists could use it.

2. Won’t somebody think of the children.

And added to this is the slightly vague and new category:

3. People often say nasty things about other people online and we just don’t know who’s saying what.

There are valid point to be had one points one and two, but there’s nothing that our current laws can’t tackle providing the police are given adequate online resources and training.

With point two (ok, yes I know these are vague, somewhat facetious, and cover a multitude of sins), there’s also a discussion to be had about better educating children to be more aware about how they use personal details and conduct relationships online. But it’s debatable how much of a difference regulating, say, social networks would make.

Point three has been covered behind the link, although is largely drivel.

It wouldn’t be a urge surprise to see a trickle of stories highlighting statistics or reports that all back tighter regulation on the internet, and these will no doubt be supplemented by a couple of unfortunate real-life examples (which will make the news precisely because they’re so unusual, rather than be indicative of a larger concern) in order to build a case for greater internet regulation.

When that happens, expect the rest of us to take years to work out exactly what this means and what you’re likely to get prosecuted for or have shut down online (I imagine Devil’s Kitchen would be one of the first to go, given the high level of (funny) abuse directed at politicians.

Ok, perhaps there’s a level of paranoia on my part here, and I’m well aware that many of the arguments made here are somewhat vague and general, plus there’s probably a couple of straw men in the above words.

But this current government has time and again shown a complete willingness to try a regulate and monitor the public to within an inch of our lives while curtailing free speech and civil liberties. It’s not a massive surprise that they’ll move online (and don’t think the other lot will be any better).

Remember, this is a government that once declared that legislation against Brian Haw was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it was worth it because this was one rather large nut [2].

Granted, this government isn’t the US army, but the Twitter and terrorists story felt a lot like scaremongering except with tanks in the virtual world rather than outside Heathrow.

There is a serious, and rational, debate to be had about child protection and/or terrorism online, but simply saying Twitter could be used for terrorists is not it. And politicians tend, in recent years, to prefer to pass more regulation than bother to have a sensible and rational debate.

It’s not a great surprise when I say I’m a big fan of social media, and its potential to help advance communication and democracy and any number of other positive things on a worldwide scale.

Some of it isn’t mainstream, some of it’s confusing to people who don’t understand it, or have been on the receiving end of a flaming early on. But neither of those are reason enough to push restrictive legislation, in whatever form that may take and curtail freedom of speech, expression and sharing of ideas online.

One day, hopefully, we’ll get that debate offline. But in the meantime, expect plenty more dire warnings about child safety and terrorism online [3].

[1] Yes, I’m aware this is from Radio 1 Newsbeat. However, they’re usually pretty good at condensing issues and, because of their audience, often tend to be a bit more insightful than other outlets, partly as the story’s often broken down to its core issues.

[2] And whatever you think about Brian Haw, it’s difficult to deny he’s got a right to protest about whatever he likes in a free country.

[3] This really isn’t to play down both of these issues, but whatever’s decided shouldn’t come at the expense of treating every online user as a potential terrorist, child abuser and general ne’er to do well. Surprisingly enough, we don’t need governments to look after us on here – and given their general track record of keeping our data, you wouldn’t trust them ether. Given the option of being ruled by government or Google, I’d take Google every time.

What was your biggest mistake as Mayor?

All the big decisions we got right. Sadly I didn’t have the power to close the Evening Standard.

I think he’s joking. At least, I like to think he’s joking. I’m not entirely sure.

Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads has usefully put together a bit more of a comprehensive background to the issue and it still doesn’t seem all that clear cut (and certainly very different from the Usmanov case):

“The Daily Record goes on to use further extracts from the letter, but stops short of printing other allegations that are, quite frankly, tangential to the central issue here *and* a matter primarily for the authorities until the moment Noor Hanif turns 18.

If at that stage she still wishes to publish these allegations herself and is unfairly silenced, she will enjoy my complete support. I’ll even help her to build the website.

…

I am not saying that it is right that a blogger can be conveniently silenced without any actual legal action. At all.

But subsequent warnings issued to newspapers suggest heavily that Jahangir Hanif’s threats are by no means idle, empty or even drunken… and in Usmanov’s case, his lawyers completely bypassed any need to go to court by avoiding authors and instead bullying their UK-based ISPs. Bloggers who then went on to defy Schillings by hosting their response(s) on US-hosted Blogger.com weblogs received nothing more than nuisance-level complaints to that provider. Two of the blogs that have published the Noor letter and removed it are Blogger.com-based and it would appear that they were at least contacted and challenged directly about their content.

This is, arguably, still a case of a man with money being able to silence someone without the means to defend themselves but the wider matter is clearly far more complicated than that, obviously party-political in nature, and a lonnnng way from being such a clear case of abuse of UK libel law that the author(s) should expect an immediate avalanche of support.

But – as you can see – I have gone to the trouble of actually explaining the background so other bloggers might better be able to decide for themselves, and that’s a step up from badgering them about not taking immediate action over a complicated game of political football nobody bothered to even notify them about in the first place.”

Political football is what it feels like, and I’d rather stay out of not overly-clear political football. Plus, it’s not clear at what stage the court case is and there’s some pretty strong allegations in the letter that, as Tim notes, are a matter for the daughter at this stage. Family disputes and political disputes… not something I’m overly keen to embroil myself in. As Nosemonkey says in the comments:

“I’m still confused as to precisely what the allegations were/are, however – and I’m not going to support someone in a libel fight if they actually did libel someone.

Saying “someone’s being sued for libel – support them or you’re a hypocrite” without saying why they’re being sued or why it’s wrong is a tad counterproductive, to say the least.”

What’s much more interesting is George Monbiot’s column on the Sheffield Wednesday supporters who were sued for the club for venting their frustration with the club and the team on an online forum – the kind of stuff you’d find on any fans forum of any team after a loss. It has similar parallels with the Hereford United messageboard dispute.

Libel laws in the UK do desperately need reforming to take into account online actions. Websites, blogs, and forums shouldn’t be taken down just because somebody doesn’t like what’s being written on there. They shouldn’t be able to be silenced without any legal action being taken, although it shouldn’t be taken as a free for all to post libellious comments willy-nilly.

It’s a tough balance, and one that is probably best answered than a better legal mind than I, although Mr Justice Eady’s judgment that online comments are more akin to slander than libel are sensible and a step in the right direction.

Libel laws are a powerful tool and can be used to chilling effect. Freedom of expression can often lose out. But this doesn’t mean anybody who has offered support to Craig Murray, Martin Watson, or the Sheffield Wednesday fans should be attaching themselves to any possible instance just because they’re told it’s a free speech issue and should be backed regardless without having any idea what it is you’re supporting.

I’d like to see Britain’s libel laws examined in more depth with a view to making them clearer with reference to online comments. That doesn’t automatically lead to meaning anybody who claims they’ve been denied their freedom of expression should be offered unqualified support. Nor should they effectively be labelled a hypocrite for not getting behind an issue they don’t fully understand and probably wouldn’t have seen unless they had a specific interest in the issue.

Computer games must be evil, right, because occasionally computer graphics do violent things to other computer graphics, which are clearly in now way any worse than your average gore-fest movie?

Facetiousness aside, the main proposals appear to be a film-style video game classification, encouraging parents not to let their kids have games consoles in their bedrooms, and internet blocking mechanisms to stop kids seeing unsavory material online.

I don’t have a problem with the classification system per se, although as somebody who used to have a Saturday job in a video games shop many many years ago, the current certificates (which are a mish-mash of the BBFC and an industry code) were pretty strictly adhered to and ID was regularly requested. I can’t imagine much has changed.

No, its the second two which are more worrying and probably practically unworkable. Firstly, telling parents what they should do with their kids playing video games is, frankly, none of government’s business. Are they recommending the same for PC games? Does it make somebody a bad parent if they don’t move their kid’s Wii or XBox into the living room?

If somebody can’t tell the difference between computer games and reality, then they’ve probably got a blurry grip on reality anyway and need help. It’s not exactly if there’s a rash of copycat video-gaming going on around the country? What’s the pressing need to protect kids. They’re managing pretty well with computer games at the moment, I’d say.

But its the internet restrictions that worry me and that, combined with Hugo Swire’s call a couple of days ago, it feels as though we’re heading closer to the Australian way of censoring the net (all for the sake of our children, naturally), which isn’t a million miles away from the Chinese way of doing things [1]. How long before we get a minister do the same as their Australian counterpart and say that if you’re against internet controls, you’re essentially a kiddie-fiddler, or that every PC must come with built in government-approved blocking software? Have these people never bothered to explain what internet protection software is on the market already?

I won’t repeat my post on the Australian government and the internet, but suffice to say the same criticisms there apply here.

The ‘think of the children’ banner is an oft-used argument. Who could possibly disagree with tighter government-approved controls on the internet if saves our children from ANYTHING BAD HAPPENING. And turns us all into mindless drones in the process.

Update: Chris Dillow is really rather good, and a lot more succinct than me, on this. 

[1] Ironically, there was a big two page article on the Chinese authorities and the internet just a few pages on.

*****

The Sun: FURY AS POTENTIAL CRIMINALS WALK OUR STREETS

Victims of crime were OUTRAGED yesterday after new research revealed there are people walking the streets who COULD commit crimes.

New police statistics show a quarter of the population are likely to commit a crime at some point in their lives – and the government has done NOTHING to stop this.

A police source told us: “We know that people have the potential to commit crimes and these figures confirm it.

“We’ve been trying to tell the government for ages the should take action and lock up these would-be monsters before it’s too late.

“We’ll have to build new prisons to lock up a quarter of the population before they can commit these crimes – but it’s a small price to pay for our safety.”

Nikki Nikkison, 21 (32DD), from Croydon had her mobile phone stolen last month and is FURIOUS at the news.

“I’m furious,” the buxom blonde told The Sun. “I’d only had twenty double vodkas and left my bag on the bar when I went to the loo – and next thing I know it’d gone.

“It’s really frightening to think that there are people out there who could commit crimes.”

Well today the Sun vows to make the streets safer for people like Nikki as we launch our ‘Lock ‘em all up’ campaign.

We have to act now and lock up 25% of our population to safeguard our childrens’ FUTURE.

It makes no sense to leave these beasts free to roam our streets – and the police should be allowed to LOCK UP whichever 25% they like.

Another police source told us: “If we act now and remove people we may just make our streets safe.

“We’ve already identified groups of people we think pose a risk.

“Primarily we’d aim to lock up all asylum seekers, blacks, poofs, people with funny sounding names, everybody who opposed the Iraq War, pro-Europeans and Liberal Democrats.

“After all, would you want your children to be alive in the knowledge French people and Mark Oaten could speak to them?”

But amazingly the government is still DITHERING when it comes to locking the population up.

When pressed Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “There is some merit in the idea, but we’ve got to look at the facts carefully and see if we could lock up, say, one fifth arbitrarily instead and see if that would suffice.”

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also refused to commit to our campaign, but promised tough new measures.

“There are people who should be locked up,” he told The Sun. “But we’re still working out which ones those are.”

“But if I – or any other minister – sees a criminal, potential or otherwise, new legislation will enable us to punch the f*****s in the face very hard.”

But while the government DILLY-DALLIES, David Cameron signed up for our campaign and promised to END the OUTRAGE.

“When I’m Prime Minister my first act will be to lock up a quarter of the population,” the Tory leader pledged.

“Everyone knows the police and statistics don’t lie and when you put the two together you get a double non-lie.

“Sadly the government shows no sign of taking a hard line on this and somebody, somewhere could be committing a crime right now because of it.

“If you’re not in the twenty-five per cent we’d lock up then you have nothing to fear.

And before leaving to catch his ultra-green bandwagon, Cameron proved he was HARDER than the Prime Minister on crime by personally disemboweling a five-year-old immigrant caught STEALING a lemon.

Had we not stopped this monster today there’s no doubt he would have grown up to be a SMACK-ADDLED PAEDOPHILE.

Take part in our exclusive Sun Poll and tell us what YOU think. Are you happy that people who haven’t yet committed a crime are free to walk the streets?
1. They should be all locked up
2. We should bring them to justice as quickly as possible.

The argument seems to fall back on that classic piece of hysteria: won’t somebody think of the children:

‘Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.’

I’d like to know what consists of inappropriate material here. Techcrunch has a pretty good summary, which includes BitTorrent, online gambling, ‘R’ rated computer games, the vague area of hate speech, as well as criticism of government policy regarding Aboriginals. I’d also imagine particularly sweary sites like Devil’s Kitchen, for example, could fall foul. After all, we wouldn’t want the children to be exposed to bad language would we?

As the ‘crunch say:

“If there is one certainty in any country that implements broadscale censorship, once they start blocking content it doesn’t stop, and certainly every do-gooder group and special interest lobbyist will be wanting the Government to add to the list.”

In all honesty, there’s no need for the Government to get involved. There’s perfectly good software out there that can block sites, and if parents want better software, then there’s enough companies out there making these products to provide even stronger controls. Absolutely no need for government interference.

What’s also worrying is the opt-out nature of the service. As techcrunch points out, if you opt-out of the censorship, the government will undoubtedly ask questions as to why and start to take an interest. So that could lead to childless twentysomethings who’ve got no need for these controls, finding themselves snooped on by the state because they fancy doing a bit of gambling or BitTorrenting.

Conroy’s defence is as daft as anything I’ve heard in a long time.

“Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road,” he said. 

Right, so you’re happy, proud even, to follow the lead of a repressive illiberal regime? Nice one. What next? Rounding up dissidents?

“If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree.” 

Christ. But this isn’t about child pornography, which in turn has close to fuck all to do with freedom of speech. You’re just using it as an excuse to slip in a host of other controls. And are you really so dumb that you can’t tell the difference between a kiddy-fiddler and a libertarian?

“He says the Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet.

“The internet hasn’t ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn’t ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it’s not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.”

And? What the hell does the speed of the internet in the UK, Sweden, or Belgium have to do with Australian censorship? What this clumsy sidestepping statement is probably dealing with is what Techcrunch raises concerns over:

‘There is also a potential cost involved to Australian Internet users. The previous Government regularly cited feedback from ISP’s stating that the cost of implementing a “clean feed” would be passed onto internet users, who already pay some of the highest internet access costs in the Western world for on average slow services.’ 

Wonderful. I have, in the past, entertained ideas of emigrating Down Under. I won’t bother now.

What worries me is firstly the number of people in the comments who think America could be heading the same way, and secondly that somebody from our wonderfully liberal government will think: “Hmm… so we’ve got ID cards coming through, what next? Ah, the Aussie internet initiative sounds like a good idea.”

Harry’s Place asks if fascists should be given free speech when, given half the chance, they’d deny others. The Devil neatly replies:

“Because we are not fascists.

Next.”

It doesn’t stop the usual idiocy being trotted out. I’ve no problem with MP Dr. Julian Lewis resigning his membership of Oxford’s debating union over the matter, but this quote verges on the daft.

“I think there are people who are confusing this with an issue of free speech. It’s not an issue of free speech to offer someone a privileged platform from a prestige organisation.”

Er, no. This is precisely an issue of free speech, and they’re being invited to speak at a debate on free speech. This couldn’t be more about freedom of speech if it chartered a hundred helicopters, hovered them above the venue, and waved 60ft high banners with the words: “This is about free speech.”

It honestly feels that, from people of all political persuasions, freedom of speech is actually read as: You’re free to say what you what providing I don’t disagree with it or find it offensive. Then you’re just being irresponsible and it stops being an issue of free speech, and starts being an issue of why you shouldn’t be allowed to say these things.

Honestly. Grow up.

Antonia Bance is another who seems to have gotten the highly confusing idea of free speech and not free speech mixed up.

“But I would just point out that having the right to freedom of speech doesn’t mean having the right to be invited to speak at a private members’ club.”

And Tim, as usual on topic such as this, is spot on:

“Indeed it doesn’t, even I would insist that it doesn’t.

I would insist however that freedom of speech absolutely includes the right of a private members’ club to invite whoever they should wish to come and speak to them. Which would appear to be what Ms. Bance is off to demonstrate against this evening.

Ho hum.”

Swiftly followed by Chris:

“It took a Cambridge Professor of Modern History weeks on the stand to rebut Irving’s assertions to the standard required in a court of law. Hardly the same, is it?

Personally I’d love to see the cream of the UK’s students rubbishing BNP plans to spend a fortune to encourage every last non-white person to leave the country.”

And I’ll leave the final word to Max Hasting’s surprisingly good column in today’s Guardian.

“Student debating societies have always been foolish, self-indulgent and irresponsible. We should cherish their right to remain so. Tonight’s Oxford audience has things to learn from listening to Griffin and Irving. We should possess sufficient faith in its intelligence to believe that they will be the right ones.”

UPDATE: Oh, ok then. Not quite the last word. Matthew, in his own indomitable style, has possibly the best take you could ever have on tonight’s storm in an industrial sized teacup. Somebody make that man Prime Minister.

And who actually who gives a toss really? Who but the protesters going to argue against precisely the thing they’re arguing for? Tonight I’m going to punch myself in the face and film it for youtube, but does that mean the moral decay of Great Britain is stopping you from drinking Calpol and watching Eastenders? No it does not. And if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.

And though as it goes I think they’re both tremendously wrong, they’d possibly afford me the chance to say so. And they’d think I was wrong, and I wouldn’t care because I’ve nearly finished Guitar Hero 3, and we’d all fetch a taxi home. I’d put an Arnie film on, they might do the crosswords, we’d all go to bed and the first thing we’d think on waking wouldn’t be, ‘Oh, my word, I can’t believe that guy, what an unendingly disgusting man he was.’

It’d be, ‘What’s for breakfast?’