They are not just noises in the head but the born into reality that pertained at the time and for many years afterwards and which only recently politicians of all stripes seek to deny. And you are attempting to justify their oppression which is surprising.

It should not be possible in England to be sent to prison for simply expressing an opinion however unpalatable. That pertained in the past and has now been curtailed. Of course nanny politicians will seek to justify that by dissembling about incitement, or libel, shouting “Fire!”, or as is now fashionable for them, post-Blair, “hate”, an emotion which they might try to prevent being articulated but which they cannot (yet) prevent being felt. In fact their oppression tends to incite hatred – or at least resentment – as every oppressor in history has discovered. If a person feels hate for something he should have the right to express that, however irrational and as many do, without sanction because the particular target(s) of their hatred do not enjoy the selective protection of those who rule over us.

And if the measure is offence then so what? Theresa May and other politicians say things all the time that deeply offend me. If the giving of offence be the subjective measure then let her cart herself off to jail. Much as the Canutes who rule over us might try they cannot legislate to force us be nice to one another. And why should they after the juvenile displays of articulated hostility in the Commons day after day.

Absolutely correct.

Oh, the freedom is absolute alright. You are describing the ways in which that freedom is now curtailed – or justified in being curtailed – which is a different thing entirely.

Your 3) concedes my own point. The law against incitement to violence did not curtail freedom of speech but only incitement to violence which is a different thing. Incitement is incitement and speech is speech. For example if a man should say “I think lawyers should be taken out and shot” that is a different thing to “Let’s take out the lawyers and shoot them!”. The one is the expression of an opinion and the other an incitement.

Blair and his grisly gang pulled the shroud of misprision over that subtlety of distinction and it has got worse ever since with the usual political trick of asking for an inch and then taking a mile. I’ve never accepted the “shouting fire” cliché to justify the curtailment of free speech because that concerns the making of a deliberate mischief – a hoax, the setting off of a false alarm. Again it is not speech, not the articulation of an opinion, however unpalatable. This cliché was much used by New Labour to justify their various intrusions upon the freedom of people and is still used by those who ought to know better. It is a rotten analogy for the constraining of free speech but deliberately contrived to make people think it acceptable for the “authorities” to exercise power over what can and can’t be said – or written.

As to your 4) not really. The Church was never an authority on speech except where it concerned heresy which does not – or should not concern us now.

In the past there was much consternation at the practice of anonymous pamphleting which was used to lampoon public figures often robustly and crudely. The authorities went to great lengths to try to stop it with the laws of sedition, obscenity, etc., but the people never consented. The internet has now freed everyone to publish “pamphlets” anonymously and the authorities still don’t like it so are doing their utmost to contrive laws to stop it by assigning the same or similar qualifications that you do. But the right to verbally denounce and defy authority is a freedom which pre-dates and has primacy over their laws in that regard. Let me try to articulate that with the analogy of occupied France. There were laws there too, imposed by force, but they were not legitimate and courageous people defied them. And just because our politicians are not an alien occupying force (although I sometimes have my doubts about that) does not give them the right to impose bad law. Oh, of course they can do it by force but it is not legitimate and by doing so they become oppressors. In that House of Commons now they conspire to exercise that sort of imposed control and whereas in the past some MPs would have defended traditional freedoms and sought not to become cast as oppressors, the current crop seem to think it their role to impose on us, justified by all sorts of contrived nonsense.

Fin articulates it perfectly below – “It is beyond the gift of politicians to grant or deny.”

You’re responding to some noises sounding inside your head of a freeborn Englishman. These are so loud that you can’t hear my argument – to a point where you’re repeating it. And mine is an historical and philosophical, rather than religious, argument. If freedom of speech were absolute and not contingent, no restrictions of it would be just. This is the case with the right to life, for example, or one to secure property. Yet you yourself have sited several restrictions even a freeborn Englishman finds perfectly acceptable. These apply, say, to libel, incitement to riot, enemy proppaganda at war time or simply shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded cinema and creating a stampede. Ergo, being restrictable, this right isn’t absolute, but a matter of consensus. (This is elementary political science.) Some authority has to decide on those restrictions, and the populace of freeborn Englishmen has to accept its decision. You yourself provide telling examples showing that today’s politicians aren’t qualified to pass judgement on this matter. If they do, then a a freeborn Englishman saying, for instance, that perhaps turning England into a Kasbah isn’t a good idea may go to jail, while other freeborn Englishmen may shout down with impunity a speaker saying that England’s sovereignty is worth keeping. There must exist an institution trusted to pass such judgement, which historically has been the Church. ‘Institution’ is the operative word – my argument isn’t just historical or religious, but ecclesiastical. Because, as you correctly suggest, Christianity has stopped being a social dynamic and the ultimate arbiter, having been relegated to a quasi-governmental, quasi-political role, or else to one of a personal idiosyncrasy, we have the likes of Blair and May running unopposed and destroying the very society created over centuries by freeborn Englishmen.

If I may arbitrate…

Your religious argument, Mr B, concerns societal manners. ‘Do as you would be done by’, ‘Cast the mote out of thine own eye’ – everything that Western civilisation is in the process of shedding – to righteous howls of rage from all of us!

What I (and I think, if I may presume, Colonel Mustard) are arguing….is that saying, to a freeborn Englishman, that he has the right to free speech, is like saying that he has the right to breathe oxygen. It is beyond the gift of politicians to grant or deny.

Blair tried to introduce a halfway house with the HRA – sneakily (how else?) trying to introduce the idea that ‘rights’ are granted by politicians à la, Napoleonic code, Europe.

Theresa May is already trying to introduce a ‘new’ law – ‘intimidation of political representatives and campaigners.’ – when existing laws already exist to counter the problem.

The problem is that the existing laws are not being enforced and the discretionary powers of the individual constable have been removed through a combination of politics and a politicised, police command structure.

I’m afraid it’s who who didn’t quite understand my main points. 1) Nowhere and at no time – not even in the ‘inherited English tradition of freedom of speech’ – has this freedom been absolute. It has always been contingent on the kind of speech. 2) Like all other contingent freedoms, this one isn’t a suicide pact. Any society has a right to self-defence. 3) We do have perfectly good laws to deal with incitement to violence, but we no longer have – nor are likely ever again to have – the kind of political culture within which such laws can be properly interpreted, applied and enforced. Today’s ‘nanny politicians’ are almost guaranteed to ban the kind of speech that shouldn’t be banned and vice versa. 4) This situation can only be prevented when there exists a moral authority that’s higher than politicians. That means the Church, which is an essential part of English tradition, and without which this tradition will certainly be debauched. All in all, such issues involve the kind of subtleties and depths that can’t be adequately covered by obvious references to civil liberties.

Absolutely right that we already have perfectly good law to deal with incitement to violence and absolutely right that the failure of the police to prevent disorder (in accordance with Peel’s Principles of policing) by enforcing existing law has undermined freedom of speech. Blair’s bad law has distracted from these failures.

Together with voting (not much good in these days of socialist party monopoly), freedom of speech is the only weapon that the common man has against tyranny without resorting to armed rebellion.

The problem is law that is not being enforced.

Laws like ‘affray’, ‘disturbing the peace’ and ‘disorderly conduct’ give the police a great deal of discretion. People who throw eggs and chant ‘scum!’ at Tory party delegates, for example, could easily be charged under these laws. Unfortunately the political will isn’t there.

One can also argue that certain verses in the Koran constitute incitement and certain islamists have definitely committed that offence – publicly and on television – but, again, no political will to enforce the law.

What did Rees-Moog say anyhow? If anything.