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- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/were-losing-the-right-to-offend-and-that-should-frighten-us/ Michael Deacon
- Ipso upheld a claim by trans woman Juno Dawson against The Spectator calling it ‘personally belittling and demeaning toward the complainant’Michael DeaconColumnist & Assistant Editor11 December 2024 6:01pm GMT
The job of a journalist, we used to think, is always to tell the truth, whether people like it or not. It seems, however, that times have changed. Because nowadays, the job of a journalist is to avoid telling the truth, in case it hurts someone’s feelings.Or so I infer from this week’s extraordinary judgment by Ipso, the press watchdog.In an article for The Spectator about Nicola Sturgeon, published in May, the writer Gareth Roberts briefly referred to the time Ms Sturgeon was interviewed by Juno Dawson, a trans woman – or, as Mr Roberts put it, “a man who claims to be a woman”. Dawson complained to Ipso. And this week it decided that The Spectator had breached the Editor’s Code of Practice – and forced the magazine to publish the ruling on its website.As Dawson is biologically male, you may feel that Mr Roberts’ phrase is hard to dispute. And, as it happens, Ipso did not uphold Dawson’s complaint of inaccuracy. The reason it found against The Spectator was that, in Ipso’s words, the phrase was “personally belittling and demeaning toward the complainant, in a way that was both pejorative and prejudicial to her gender identity”.In other words: it was accurate. But it hurt the subject’s feelings. So you shouldn’t have said it.The Spectator’s new editor, Michael Gove, calls the ruling “outrageous”. And he’s absolutely right. Using the phrase “a man who claims to be a woman” may upset trans activists, but that doesn’t mean journalists should be punished for saying it. After all, saying “fairies aren’t real” may upset a child. But that doesn’t mean newspapers should be forced to pretend they are real, and publish solemn reports of the latest magical happenings in the fairy realm.Nonetheless, Ipso has spoken. So now, to avoid the same fate, journalists will be wondering what to write instead of “man who claims to be a woman”. Perhaps: “Man who is in possession of a piece of paper issued under the terms of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, stating that, despite appearances to the contrary, he is actually a woman, and you’d better agree or keep your trap shut”?Whatever the answer, we need to face the most uncomfortable truth of all. Which is that it isn’t just journalists whose free speech is under threat; it’s everyone’s. Because the fact is, we’re losing the right to offend – and that should frighten us all.Think of the undergraduate in Leeds, recently suspended from hosting her student radio show after posting a gender-critical blog. Or the 17-year-old female footballer, suspended for six matches last month after asking a trans opponent: “Are you a man?” Or the Newcastle United fan banned from attending matches after posting gender-critical views on social media.It’s not all about gender, either. Think of the Christian teacher sacked last year after saying he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. And remember how, in September, an Oxford don lamented that today’s undergraduates are too “frightened” to speak their minds in seminars, for fear they’ll be cancelled for causing offence.In fact, that’s the key word here: “fear”. Journalists have editors to fight their corner. But members of the public don’t. So, when they read about the trouble you can get in these days for saying the “wrong” thing, they may decide it’s safer not to express an opinion at all. They don’t want the police to come knocking on their door, like they did with Allison Pearson…Such fear, though, spells disaster for society. Because, when it comes to speech, offence is the price of freedom. - Sinister zealots are putting free speech under threat in Britain as never before
- Allister Heath
Sinister zealots are putting free speech under threat in Britain as never before
The press regulator must not allow itself to be used to stymie the expression of legitimate opinion
Standing up for free speech: Michael Gove, The Spectator’s new editor, has lambasted Ipso’s absurd ruling this week against the magazine Credit: Lucy North/PA
11 December 2024 7:24pm GMT
What has happened to our country, once the freest in Europe? Why did we cease to be the home of open debate, civilised disagreement and liberalism at its best? When did we sign away our right to free speech, our freedom to tell it as it is, to expose cant and lies and hypocrisy, to disagree with the powerful, fashionable and sanctimonious?
How did it come to pass that a nation that always refused to be told what to do, that still cannot even tolerate ID cards, ended up acquiescing so meekly to the demise of free expression? The world is watching our descent into soft authoritarianism with great sadness.
Unimpeded speech is the foundational freedom without which no other can survive, a prerequisite for any democratic polity. Frederick Douglass, the great American abolitionist, put it beautifully in 1860. “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist,” he said. “That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.”
Those in today’s world who seek to exercise power over us – the woke mob, “human rights” lawyers, pressure groups, bureaucrats, politicians, regulators, big tech companies, HR departments, the post-liberal intelligentsia, the know-it-alls, the propagandists – are fully aware that free speech is their very own kryptonite. They dread scrutiny, and fear being held to account.
Their strategy to combat open and fearless expression can vary. Speech can be regulated or constrained by laws, directives or official guidance, as with ever-expanding privacy case law or “non-crime hate incidents”; bullying, shunning and cancelling dissidents can also work well, forging a toxic culture of self-censorship.
There is no better way to stamp out dissent than to cite a “speech code”, or claim that “the science” isn’t being followed, or to dismiss somebody’s opinion as a “conspiracy theory” (even when it is not) or to warn that somebody’s feelings are being hurt.
Several of the greatest global scandals of recent years could have been avoided had speech been freer. In Britain and Europe, cancel culture was deployed against anybody who questioned the scale and impact of mass migration, with sceptics smeared as racists. The Hunter Biden scandal was covered up, including by Facebook, which censored a New York Post story ahead of the 2020 elections. It became impossible to discuss the likelihood that Covid originated from an accidental lab leak in Wuhan; posts or articles would be removed from social media or search engines, and authors hounded as xenophobes.
Yet while the Americans are fighting back, the situation in Britain keeps getting worse. Allison Pearson, my Telegraph colleague, was persecuted by the police over a tweet. Floyd Mayweather, the boxing legend, was harassed while shopping in London, apparently because of his laudable pro-Israel, anti-Hamas views.
The newspaper industry’s regulator has joined in too. Earlier this year, The Spectator published a piece about an interview Nicola Sturgeon gave at a literary festival. Gareth Roberts, the author, wrote that the former Scottish first minister and advocate of gender self-ID “was interviewed by writer Juno Dawson, a man who claims to be a woman, and so the conversation naturally turned to gender”.
Dawson complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the regulator which also oversees The Telegraph. Ipso ruled that while the piece was accurate and did not constitute harassment, it breached section 12.1 of the Editor’s Code, which states: “The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.” Ipso ruled that the reference to Dawson’s gender identity was pejorative and prejudicial.
This was a deeply disappointing judgment by a regulator that appears to hold an overly expansive view of its own remit. It dismissed the author’s, and the publication’s, right to free speech and ability to state a view that I suspect the majority of the population would agree with. Ipso, which was set up as an alternative to effective state regulation, has strayed into the realm of taste and politics: it is imposing its views on the press, rather than making sure that facts and accuracy are maintained. Its claims to “uphold high editorial standards to protect the public and freedom of expression” ring hollow.
At a time when extreme gender activism is in retreat, the press’s own regulator has, however inadvertently, done the zealots’ work for them, forcing journalists to follow the diktats of an unpopular ideology.
I stand in solidarity with Michael Gove, The Spectator’s editor, and his predecessor, Fraser Nelson, who published the piece. Gove is right to defend his magazine’s right to free expression, protesting that “Dawson may have a Gender Recognition Certificate but no piece of paper, whatever it may say, can alter biological reality. Parliament may pass laws, but they cannot abolish Dawson’s Y chromosome.”
In a world where posts on X, Elon Musk’s pro-free speech successor to Twitter, can get millions of views in minutes, newspapers and magazines cannot compete if they are banned from stating certain facts or expressing popular but non-woke opinions.
Other decisions by Ipso have constrained the freedom of the press. An adjudication against Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun in 2022 – following complaints by pressure groups – overstepped the mark, restricting the freedom of columnists to be offensive and silly if they (and their editor) feel like it. Ipso has undermined open justice by ruling against Aberdeen Live in a court reporting case, weaponising Clause 4 of the Editor’s Code (which deals with intrusion into grief and shock) to introduce its own value judgments and interfering in editorial decisions.
In an age where there is collapsing trust in all institutions, it is madness to prevent journalists from reporting all of the facts, or to make it too risky for columnists to tackle difficult subjects. Consigning free speech to a few US-based online platforms will further hollow out the British media.
Enough is enough: America is rediscovering free speech, so why can’t we? We need to be able to express ourselves freely, limited only by common sense and the normal constraints of the law. If the current political establishment cannot give us back our liberty, we will elect a new one that can.
NHS trust compares cousin marriage to white women having children over 34
Bradford health chiefs say practice is ‘cultural’ and no different to ‘liberts distributed to families in Bradford that cousin marriage accounts for about a third of birth defects.
Education to degree level was found to be a strong protective factor, halving the risk of congenital anomalies irrespective of ethnic origin.
Lee Anderson is right. Here are 10 ways life is harder for men than women
We may not all have fought in the Battle of The Somme, but life can be tough for us blokes
Anderson has recently called for wider recognition of a man’s plight in having to go through the Battle of the Somme Credit: Maja Smiejkowska
Michael DeaconColumnist & Assistant Editor
12 December 2024 7:00am GMT
Lee Anderson, the hot-tempered Reform MP, has spent the week being the butt of Left-wing online ridicule. Yes, even more than usual. And it’s all because he made one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make on social media.
In short: he dared to suggest that, at least sometimes, life is tougher for men than women.
It all began when a woman on Twitter asked the following question. “Women deal with periods, pregnancy and menopause,” she wrote. “What do men have to deal with?”
An honest answer might have been, “Women dealing with periods, pregnancy and menopause.” That, of course, would have landed Mr Anderson in quite enough trouble. His actual reply, however, managed to provoke an even greater uproar.
It was: “Try the Battle of the Somme.”
Obviously what he meant was: “In times of war, it tends to be men who get conscripted to fight and die on the front line, not women.” But, social media being what it is, almost everyone has chosen to ignore that, and instead pilloried him for appearing to suggest that fighting on the Somme in 1916 is a universal male experience.
I for one, however, have some sympathy for Mr Anderson. Because, while I myself may never have fought on the Somme, or indeed in any other military conflict, I do think he’s got a point. Just as women are the only ones who have to endure periods, pregnancy and menopause, there really are problems in life that only us poor men have to endure.
And here are 10 of them…
1. Fat
Yes, obviously women put on weight too. But at least they tend to do it in a consistent, uniform manner. To put it bluntly: if a woman is fat, she’s fat all over. A man, however, can develop a vast, pendulous beer belly while his arms and legs remain skinny. Which just makes him look ridiculous. Like a frog that’s swallowed a bowling ball.
2. Eyebrows
Around the age of 40, if you’re a man, these begin sprouting crazed, wiry tufts, making you resemble a grumpy owl. When hairdressers start asking you if you’d like them trimmed, it’s embarrassing enough. But in due course, something even more embarrassing happens. Hairdressers just trim them automatically, without even stopping to ask.
3. Nasal hair
Charles Darwin may have been one of the most influential thinkers in history, but I don’t believe he ever managed to explain the evolutionary purpose of middle-aged men growing a small forest in each of their nostrils. Or, later on, their ears.
4. Silver fox envy
Most women can’t stand it when their hair goes grey, so they dye it. Simple enough. For men, however, the issue is more complicated. Because when men go grey, like George Clooney, they somehow seem more attractive, elegant, serious. Which leaves those of us who still have our original hair colour feeling somehow less manly – like a squeaky-voiced 16-year-old boy who hasn’t gone through puberty. Perhaps we should do the opposite of women, and dye it grey.
5. Jawline
In our youth, strong and square. Yet in middle age, it loses definition, and goes all vague and wobbly like the coast of Norway. Which is of course why, around the age of 40, so many men grow beards. Mentioning no names, Prince Harry. Or William.
6. Bladder
In later life, shrivels to the size of a lentil – leading to weary, bleary-eyed trips to the loo at 2am. We might as well sleep in the bathroom, to save wearing out our slippers.
7. Snoring
All right, so our wives will argue that they’re the real victims here. But we suffer too. Obstructive sleep apnoea – around three times more common in men than women – can leave us at risk of high blood pressure, heart conditions and stroke. At the very least, we wake up feeling as if we’ve spent the whole night gargling a Brillo pad.
8. Clothes shopping
The bosses of high-street clothing chains have eyes only for women. Hence the vast and varied arrays of stylish outfits on offer to them. Men, by contrast, are treated as a dreary, dowdy afterthought. Which is why the men’s sections of such chains are so paltry, and invariably resemble a jumble sale held by the gild of retired Blue Peter presenters.
9. Life expectancy
Even if we aren’t forced to fight on the Somme, we die younger than women do. Then again, not every man may see this as a bad thing. To quote the comedian Simon Munnery: “Why do men die before their wives? Could it be because they want to?”
10. Stiff upper lip
Of course, I could have made some slightly more serious points here. Compared to women, men have vastly higher rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness and suicide. The problem, however, is that complaining about how hard it is to be a man is considered unmanly. So we tend not to do it. Unless, that is, we fancy getting monstered like Lee Anderson.
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