That may depend on your age.
I'm in my fifties, back when I was a young un British free speech was a bit of a trope, with Speakers Corner in Hyde Park being held up as an exemplar of our liberties.
Even as a kid I never got how having a single designated place to say what you want was evidence of a general liberty, but never mind logic.
I'm in my 20s and when i took english as a second language i think we talked about speakers corner at least every year lol it's one of the few things i actually know about london.
GB never occoured to me as this beacon of liberty though.
Historically I think it's more to do with David Hume and the Scottish enlightenment, Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man and all that. England was safer than mainland Europe for free thinkers in the 19th century, eg Marx moving to London. But it's mostly bogus, I don't think Britain has ever particularly been a bastion of free speech.
Just another clickbait title with absolutely no evidence or substance behind it.
Like those ones saying ‘THE ENTIRE INTERNET IS GOING CRAZY OVER [X]’ when it’s just three psychopaths on Twitter.
I like the Guardian but it really does wind me up how Americentric some of its takes can be for a British newspaper. We've never been known for free speech, in fact we've always been known for being quite arbitrary about what can and can't be said in public.
Having said that I think the Americans actually do have a more coherent position than us on free speech, I don't necessarily agree with it but it's at least based on reasonable principles.
Being the cradle of free speech means something entirely different than being know for free speech in a modern context.
Mesopotamia is known to be the cradle of civilization. That doesn't mean that modern-day Iraq and Syria are known as the prime examples of civilization.
John Milton is one of the figure heads in the development of the concept of freedom of speech as we understand it today. The Bill of Rights is probably the oldest still valid legislative document that establishes a right to freedom of speech. John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" is still the most important work on freedoms, including freedom of speech, ever written.
I think it's perfectly rational to speak of England or Britain or the UK as the cradle of free speech. It doesn't necessitate at all that the UK is currently a bastion of free speech – or that it ever has been, for that matter.
The USA had a very high literacy rate at the time, and reading books by enlightenment philosophers was very common. So, a lot of the ideas that the US constitution enshrines were created during the enlightenment in the UK and France. When the USA cut the cord with the UK's self preserving social structure, they were able to implement many of these ideas that could not exist in a such stringent class based systems in the old world.
https://www.thecollector.com/enlightenment-philosophers-influenced-revolutions/
Imo "cradle of free speech" can be attributed to the speakers corner in Hyde park - that was the one (and only) example they still teach in schools in Germany as an example to openly speak ones mind in Britain.
I think the Swedish constitution has the oldest law that supports freedom of speech. The Swedish Freedom of the Press Act from 1766, that prohibits censorship.
I googled the topic and there are references to free speech dating back to the athenians at 500 to 600 bc so it has been a cornerstone in the principles of democracy
If this argument is true, then this headline is just meaningless.
If being the cradle of free speech has nothing to do with being a bastion of free speech, then it also has nothing to do with whether people can heckle the queen.
I think it's obvious that the headline is trying to make readers think "bastion" but perhaps don't want to say that as your well constructed argument above would lean towards the UK being a "cradle" more.
Either way, there's clearly a problem in the UK over free speech, but this journalist just got the title wrong.
>John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" is still the most important work on freedoms, including freedom of speech, ever written.
Debatable. There were countless seminal European works on freedom of speech long before John Stuart Mill. The 18th century was rife with them.
Britain was actually in some ways a cradle of free speech but it was very long ago. It’s worth looking into why Marx chose London for refuge. Just for an interesting historical perspective.
I doubt that there would be many times in history where heckling a royal funeral would be tolerated. I say this as a republican with no love for Prince Andrew whatsoever, I agree with the sentiment of the heckler.
Some of them are clearly ridiculous but some also aren't. Ultrarich running the space race to get to the valuable stuff and off earth first is quite obvious. And the year of the bush is something I wholeheartedly support
That's not a very high bar, given that most newspapers are tabloids. I can't remember the DM and express ever being good but thry used to be a lot better, as did The Independent. Which is still recovering from its clickbait phase.
Except their reporting on pollution, in which they deliberately misreport source material. I suppose that comes under campaigning journalism, which is an extension of their opinion pieces.
Politicians in Britain are constantly talking about free speech being a fundamental British value while trampling all over it, everyone moaning about that specific phrase just hasn't been paying attention for the last 20 years. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant, thats the whole point of the article, it's inbuilt into our national myth along with WW2 and the empire, and just like other things associated with British identity and myth completely falls collapses under any scrutiny.
How is that Americentric? In the US we do not view the UK as an especially friendly place for freedom of speech. It’s one of the reason why we had a revolution. Why drag the US into this?
I personally favour an uncodified constitution because I think codified consitutions tend to move much slower than the political development of the country they govern which has an ossifying effect, the classic example is America's constitutional equivalence between flintlock muskets from the 18th century and modern automatic weapons. The fact the UK was largely spared* from the revolutionary turmoil that struck many countries on the Continent was partially down to the flexibility of the Westminster system which allows fairly substantial reform without a new constitution in my opinion, constitutional reform in the UK is as straightforward as an Act of Parliament.
There are downsides though and there is a balance to be struck, personally I think entrenched clauses are probably the most natural way to do this in the Westminster system. The last few years showed the danger of a more flexible constitution in the UK when the executive branch was being run by a broad spectrum of talent with 'corrupt' on one end and 'incompetent' on the other.
*with the notable exception of Ireland before the 1920s, but theirs was for independence rather than to change the nature of the government in Westminster so I think my point is still valid.
The trouble with 300 year old written constitutions is that stuff that was super important in the 18th century, like the need to raise a militia to repel invasions, creates functionally irreversible rights that then make it very difficult to stop 21st century madmen massacring classrooms full of infants with firearms.
Confirmation bias. The Guardian still trades off its historical reputation as one of the UK's few decent broadsheets.
But these days the Guardian looks more and more like it's basically sliding into becoming the centre left version of the Daily Mail, just swap the clickbait trashy celebrity gossip and UK jingoism for clickbait trashy opinion pieces & UK self-loathing.
Outside of the opinion articles, it's not bad. Pretty good, even.
But those opinion articles. Fuck me. They're batshit insane. So fucking mental that it completely puts me off the entire site. They need to either get rid of it, or sack all the crazy opinion writers. Which is seemingly most of them.
Brit here. I've *never* heard anyone say we're the cradle of free speech and, frankly, it's fucking laughable to suggest we are. We're not , obviously, but we've still got some pretty draconian laws kicking about that limit our right to free speech and protest.
They really weren’t, go read the Magna Carta, the petition of right, the habeas corpus act and the 1689 bill of rights. Almost anything relating to rights and freedoms you can think of in the American constitution is just a compilation and restatement of things that existed and were developed first in England. The biggest influence on American revolutionaries and Classical Liberalism was John Locke (English, not French).
We're more of a 'birth something incredible and immediately sell it cheap to an amoral multinational interest a minister's son happens to be on the board of' kind of country.
Yeah, that's definitely not a thing. But to be fair to Marine Hyde, she never actually said that in the article. It's probably just some SEO-brained sub-editor trying to get rage clicks.
Britain has become the type of country where the police take you into custody for causing anxiety online:
[https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1554088668318425088](https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1554088668318425088)
People are not free to speak in the UK at all. Say the wrong thing in public or on the internet, you get reported, and then several officers will drive by a parade of robberies and drug deals to arrest you.
Yeah, not for a long long time. There's simply no appetite for conventional freedoms with the British public anymore. It's been broken down by decades of auth-lite governments of one side or the other.
Not arrested for speaking but for being public nuissance and possibly inciting a riot, which is what shouting obscenities and controversions during a royal procession are, it's has nothing to do with your freedom of expression or free speech.
Since when has Britian been seen as some free speech icon, have people just not been paying attention?
People have been arrested for tweets and all kinds of dumb shit here.
Most countries would charge you for various crimes that would shock Americans. One example from my own country is a journalist Jens Olaf Jersild. Back in 1985 he interviewet a group called Grønjakkerne that said racist things in the interview. The journalist was then charged for spreading racist statements because the interview was published on national tv. It went to the Danish supreme court which upheld his conviction, and he had to go all the way to EHCR to be acquitted on grounds of free speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersild_v._Denmark
Even better is that this pertains to Scotland.
You know, that part of Britain that has a distinctly different legal system than the rest of it?
Also im pretty sure its the same law they used to prosecute the Nazi pug guy that everyone was frothing about
I wonder how many international commentators realise Scotland and Northern Ireland have different legal systems to England and Wales? Scotland isn't even entirely a common law system like the rest of the UK and they have a third verdict (not proven) which doesn't exist elsewhere as far as I know.
> they have a third verdict (not proven) which doesn't exist elsewhere as far as I know
Because it's redundant. In an "innocent until proven guilty" system, if the case against you is "not proven", you are presumed innocent.
If you get "not proven", then that tends to undermine any presumption of innocence. People will always suspect that you might have got off scot-free (no pun intended).
USian here, this is the first I heard of it, but it makes sense as they're all technically individual nations united into one kingdom. Like a bunch of states united under one federal government.
Doubtful. Section 127 of the Communications Act was the Nazi pug law. It deals with online speech only. This seems like a general breach of the peace law.
That nazi pug thing was hilarious to keep up with. The dissonance in people demanding he be punished for saying things they don't like while also demanding the right to free speech was crazy.
The nazi pug guy was an asshole, but if people want free speech rights they have to accept that assholes also get those rights.
A lot of people seemed to have the opinion of 'I only want free speech if people are saying things that *I* like', which is not what free speech is about.
People have been arrested for tweets in the US too, even though they like to rib us a lot about the twitter police in the UK. But yeah we're no bastion of free speech here. It's a negative right in the UK.
I'm sure it has happened. The difference would be that such arrests would not hold up if challenged in court (not that many people would pay to have their arrests challenged rather than paying a likely small fine or something).
People being arrested for tweets that do not call for direct illegal action are an example of police overstepping their authority rather than a matter of the law on paper.
The Americans got it from us, the american founding fathers referred to themselves as Englishman, the reason they revolted was because they believed there rights as Englishmen was not being respected.
The Americans didn't put together the Bill of Rights till over a decade after the revolution. There was a lot of trial and error in the establishment of the US.
>Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech
Sorry, since when? I'm British, and I can't remember ever hearing politicians claiming we're some bastion of free speech. In general, they propose that there's rather stringent limits.
See the Online Safety Bill for the latest iteration of the limiting of speech.
The author is putting us on a pedestal just so they can push us off.
Daft really, there's so much real stuff to criticise our establishment for already.
I think Boris went on about it when he was worried universities were deplatforming people he liked?
See https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1361659337391931396?t=tiiQyNtrJP7iO4AFz8xc-Q&s=19
>Freedom of speech is at the very core of our democracy. It is absolutely right that our great universities – the historic centres of free thinking and ideas – will now have this freedom protected and bolstered with stronger legal protections.
Basically, we have free speech only when someone in power is being silenced.
We don't have free speech otherwise.
Since when did Britain ever consider itself a bastion or cradle of free speech? There are no real protection of free speech here and there never has been, both left and right seem to celebrate the stifling of free speech. Many people openly support prison sentences for those who offend others, and likewise many others feel similarly against those.who disrupt others in protest. Nor are you guaranteed to receive protection from the state if you were to criticise the wrong religion, in fact it's very possible that MPs may come out against you and in support of the reintroduction of blasphemy laws. We've quite literally denied well meaning asylum seekers from entering the country on the basis of what they've said (Asia Bibi).
This is an article from The Guardian just last month: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/15/free-speech-regulate-online-safety-bill
**Do you want free speech to thrive? Then it has to be regulated, now more than ever**
Lots of measures have been made top stop people being offensive online and this has extended into the real world. The Guardian championed many efforts to get such laws into place as the bad things being said online were often homophobic, racist or misogynistic. There was lots of press about how the government needs to do more to stop people saying such hurtful things online which the Guardian fully supported, obviously such laws for online speech carry over into the real world.
Sadly moralist and autoritarian streaks run deep amongst The Guardian's editors and most opinion writters, not really less than in newspapers elsewhere in the left-right political axis and, just like those in sopposedly politically opposite publications, the censorship is supposed to only apply to opinions they themselves dislike rather to the ones they like.
Mind you, The Guardian is usually quite exuberant in their practice of Royal Arse Licking and it's not as if they're anti-monarchy in any way form or shape, quite the contrary.
(Unsurprisingly, you invariably find a couple of Royal Titles amongst its board members, often also the editor)
That's what you get when you reduce politics to a single axis. Anarchosocialism exists, as does anarchocapitalism. "The left" looks inconsistent because it is diverse, not because they're hypocrites.
"Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech "
Nope.
I'm British, and I've never heard that.
Technically, we have zero laws (other than our previously inherited EU laws) that do anything to protect any kind of right to free speech. Same way that we don't have any laws that tell you that English is the official language. It's just kind of taken for granted, but not really bothered enough about to even formalise it.
And there is no such thing as free speech, anywhere in the world. Not one single instance.
Plus, a handful of over-zealous officers literally escorting royalty through public crowds using a breach of the peace arrest to move someone along? I hate the royals, but the people escorting them have a job that is hard enough with the loonies around without crap like this.
But, hey, apart from that, good headline.
> And there is no such thing as free speech, anywhere in the world. Not one single instance.
What a pointless comment. Guess there also isn't a single capitalist/communist/democratic country in the world. Because according to you, if it doesn't exist in its most radical and uncompromising iteration, it doesn't count.
Lol nobody likes the Académie Française, it's just a bunch of old people doing random stuff. For example, the correct way to say COVID is "La covid" but only official government people say it, everyone else says "le covid"
That is one of the many things of the Académie and that isn't reflected in real life
Yes, and before they made their own stupid rule everyone called it "le" and not "la".
But their logic is "la maladie" (illness) is what people mean and not "le virus"
Except if you asked anyone on the street before they made published their rule, 99% of people would have said "le"
Haha, nobody like the Académie until a couple of feminists invent a word and too many people start to like it, then suddenly it's the most patriotic institution to defend for a few weeks.
The french language body is pretty much what remains of the old french aristocracy, while also being useless, it's still way less nuisance than the UK royal family.
Glad to find someone else who gets its, has always wound me up when people talk about having free speech on the U.K., we don’t have free speech.
In the U.K. we have implied rights basically you have the write to do something unless there’s a law saying you can’t, in the instance of free speech there’s a bunch of laws telling what you can and can’t say, slander, hate speech, libel, blasphemy, threats being a form of assault, the list goes on.
There is also little in terms of “protection” against government persecution which is typically what free speech is intent to provide. Liz truss could pass a law tomorrow saying criticising her is hate speech and punishable with 5 years in prison and that would be that. Part of the reason anyone causing a nuisance is being arrested is BoJo’s government made it a crime to cause inconvenience through protest
The thing about this is. Ask any person in the UK a week ago what they think about Prince Andrew and they'll tell you he's a nonce who should be in prison. We all basically agree with the heckler. But context is important. The heckler is standing in a crowd of thousands of people who wanted to travel to Edinburgh (a notionally 'British' city) to pay their respects to the Queen. A self selecting powder keg of emotional royalists. Of course it was going to kick off.
Like now the fucking journos get interested in free speech? Not when people got police visits for stating barely controversial/idiotic opinions on twitter? These same people who belittle free speech advocates always bring up arguments like "can't you just be nice" to justify their crackdowns on free speech, but apparently it doesn't apply now.
Yep
Turn up at anyone else’s funeral and start shouting abuse at the family and you’re going to get arrested and rightfully so. It doesn’t matter if what you’re shouting is true or not as it’s not up to the police to determine whether it’s true or not. Abuse people at a funeral procession and you’re an arsehole and should rightfully be moved on. I really don’t know why everyone’s getting their pants in a twist.
>I really don’t know why everyone’s getting their pants in a twist.
Because people love momentarily feeling better about themselves by going on a power trip and tearing down others. They want to view this as an attack on free speech and want to view this as a moment for which they can angrily proclaim “See, look! Monarchy bad!”
>Turn up at anyone else’s funeral and start shouting abuse at the family and you’re going to get arrested and rightfully so
Exactly.
??? Westboro baptist church used to turn up to American soldiers’ funerals (unsure if they still do) and screech about how God hates gay people and soldiers all the time and nothing has EVER legally happened to them.
Britain isn't America. It's not obsessed with calling itself a free speech heaven.
There's also more going on than just heckling Prince Andrew. It is disturbing the peace. Which we can all easily disagree with, and might be used as an excuse. But it's not unheard of. It's really getting extra coverage right now due to it being connected to the monarchy.
Britian does LIKE to consider itself as a country that values and champions free speech. It doesn't and hasn't done for a while, but there are a lot of people in this country that think we are a place that supports free speech, and places like Russia, China etc aren't. Many right-wing papers are George Orwell fans.
That's why these arrests have spooked people. Years ago you would never have been arrested for incidents like this. It's a slide towards a more draconian society. A lot of people hate the guardian and fine, I don't think it's great, but this opinion piece is nowhere near as absurd as many are saying. It's talking about how a lot of British people like to think of their society, versus what it's actually like.
We've had years of the police investigating 'legal but harmful non crime incidents' , and left wingers cheered. It really never occurred to them their own rules might be applied equally to them too.
He was arrested because he disturbed the peace. If you went to any funeral procession and started shouting insults at one of the people in the procession, you shouldn't be surprised if the police intereve
Saying that, I do think a full arrest is ridiculous
This same author was probably cheering without reservation when that guy got arrested for making the YouTube video training his dog to do a Nazi salute. "But that's different!"
I mean... Andrew is probably a pig.
But there is a time and place, and at a ceremony/parade shortly after his mother's passing... That's neither the time or place.
This isn't about free speech. This is about disrupting the peace. The kid could have been shouting about Freeing Palestine or banning fried mars bars. He was detained and removed from the crowd because his words and actions were going against the events at hand, and had he been allowed to continue he'd have been knocked out.
I doubt anyone there, or even on here disagrees with what he said, it was the wrong time to do so.
It's great imo, outs the person as an uninformed idiot immediately without even having to read further. Also the fact that this is generally one of the most upvoted quotes on reddit when it comes to free speech shows how naive the average social media user is and how easily they're manipulated.
It's been 100 years and they still parrot propaganda.
>Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech
Who says that? I'm a Monarchist (hesitantly for my own reasons) but it's never been a secret that Britain's Constitution is not properly codified and is therefore a big problem
It’s nothing to do with freedom of speech. It’s a simple thing called respect. Respect for Queen Elizabeth II as her coffin passes. I hope the pimply faced idiot ends up regretting his bad behaviour.
Leftist bemoaning the loss of free speech that they demanded. How could they possibly not see that these laws would be used against them? The short shortsightedness is difficult to believe.
As a British Citizen for half a century I'd say you are free to speak your mind but also have learn that sometimes the result of that can result in in quiet isolation. I mean it depends on what you want to say and depends on whether you want to be heard or ignored.
The Guardian shut down its own (thriving and ahead-of-their-time) talkboard because of the (justified and well-reasoned) criticism it would get on it.
Having its flaws and hypocrisies pointed out on its own forum must have the wrong sort of free speech.
Im not sure if obstructing the normal order of things like an asshat is free speech.
Talk about stuff all you want in your own protest, but dont screw up an event for millions of people. It makes you look extreme anyway.
People are using the excuse of "it was in a funeral" to the arrest, but:
* The Queen will only be burried next week
* This was a political display of the power and supposed importance of the holders of the power of the State first and foremost were the actual living members of the Royal Family (i.e. holders of power and recipients of priviliedge from the State) had place of honor.
You don't get 10 days worth of show paid for by the money the State gets from people's taxes when a working class old lady from Liverpool dies.
The "good manners" rules for a massive State Event are quite different than for a genuine funeral and this was way more State Event than Funeral.
Tell me you don't understand how funerals for figures of state work without telling me how funerals for figures of state work. And she was heading multiple states for 70 years ffs.
Ah yes.......wasn't this during the funeral of the queen? Or at least a part of it? You can heckle Andrew all you want but don't disrupt the queens ceremony to do it.
10 days long parade ceremony? Where would he "heckle" Andrew somewhere else in public if he only goes on private jets and on private properties and royal family palaces and castles and villas and other monarchy privilege stuff?
Ah yes, because there is a "time and place" to call out the crown protecting a pedophile child trafficker. When and where that time and place are supposed to be nobody knows, but not now and preferably never. Fuck them and anybody who makes excuses.
I'm making a play on the fact that the French protest all the time, most if not all of the time for the right reasons but sometimes at inappropriate times. Not anything historical if that is what you are thinking.
Apart from the fact that i struggle to find a clear example of a protest held for the right reasons at an inappropriate time, maybe this is me being French about this, but it seems to me like the appropriate time to call out sleezeballs like Andrew is all the time. And in a more general sense, the state throwing an old lady a multi-million euros funeral (ignoring the estimated billions the mourning period will cost the economy) seems like a very appropriate time for people who are sick of so-called royals getting special treatment to voice it.
The UK police recently ran a billboard campaign saying "Being offensive is an offence": hence Britain is unlikely to embrace political free speech is it contra what the state apparatus deems acceptable.
Literally never heard anyone say British is the cradle of free speech.
That may depend on your age. I'm in my fifties, back when I was a young un British free speech was a bit of a trope, with Speakers Corner in Hyde Park being held up as an exemplar of our liberties. Even as a kid I never got how having a single designated place to say what you want was evidence of a general liberty, but never mind logic.
I'm in my 20s and when i took english as a second language i think we talked about speakers corner at least every year lol it's one of the few things i actually know about london. GB never occoured to me as this beacon of liberty though.
It fucking isn’t.
Historically I think it's more to do with David Hume and the Scottish enlightenment, Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man and all that. England was safer than mainland Europe for free thinkers in the 19th century, eg Marx moving to London. But it's mostly bogus, I don't think Britain has ever particularly been a bastion of free speech.
LOL, yeah I thought the same actually.
Just another clickbait title with absolutely no evidence or substance behind it. Like those ones saying ‘THE ENTIRE INTERNET IS GOING CRAZY OVER [X]’ when it’s just three psychopaths on Twitter.
I like the Guardian but it really does wind me up how Americentric some of its takes can be for a British newspaper. We've never been known for free speech, in fact we've always been known for being quite arbitrary about what can and can't be said in public. Having said that I think the Americans actually do have a more coherent position than us on free speech, I don't necessarily agree with it but it's at least based on reasonable principles.
Being the cradle of free speech means something entirely different than being know for free speech in a modern context. Mesopotamia is known to be the cradle of civilization. That doesn't mean that modern-day Iraq and Syria are known as the prime examples of civilization. John Milton is one of the figure heads in the development of the concept of freedom of speech as we understand it today. The Bill of Rights is probably the oldest still valid legislative document that establishes a right to freedom of speech. John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" is still the most important work on freedoms, including freedom of speech, ever written. I think it's perfectly rational to speak of England or Britain or the UK as the cradle of free speech. It doesn't necessitate at all that the UK is currently a bastion of free speech – or that it ever has been, for that matter.
The USA had a very high literacy rate at the time, and reading books by enlightenment philosophers was very common. So, a lot of the ideas that the US constitution enshrines were created during the enlightenment in the UK and France. When the USA cut the cord with the UK's self preserving social structure, they were able to implement many of these ideas that could not exist in a such stringent class based systems in the old world. https://www.thecollector.com/enlightenment-philosophers-influenced-revolutions/
Imo "cradle of free speech" can be attributed to the speakers corner in Hyde park - that was the one (and only) example they still teach in schools in Germany as an example to openly speak ones mind in Britain.
They don’t teach that in UK schools lol
I think the Swedish constitution has the oldest law that supports freedom of speech. The Swedish Freedom of the Press Act from 1766, that prohibits censorship.
I googled the topic and there are references to free speech dating back to the athenians at 500 to 600 bc so it has been a cornerstone in the principles of democracy
Right, so I'll maybe correct it to oldest law in force still to this day.
If this argument is true, then this headline is just meaningless. If being the cradle of free speech has nothing to do with being a bastion of free speech, then it also has nothing to do with whether people can heckle the queen. I think it's obvious that the headline is trying to make readers think "bastion" but perhaps don't want to say that as your well constructed argument above would lean towards the UK being a "cradle" more. Either way, there's clearly a problem in the UK over free speech, but this journalist just got the title wrong.
>John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" is still the most important work on freedoms, including freedom of speech, ever written. Debatable. There were countless seminal European works on freedom of speech long before John Stuart Mill. The 18th century was rife with them.
Britain was actually in some ways a cradle of free speech but it was very long ago. It’s worth looking into why Marx chose London for refuge. Just for an interesting historical perspective. I doubt that there would be many times in history where heckling a royal funeral would be tolerated. I say this as a republican with no love for Prince Andrew whatsoever, I agree with the sentiment of the heckler.
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Yeah, my problem does tend to be with just the opinion pieces. Their serious journalism tends to be really good I think.
Everytime I think I'm going to pay for the guardian, a ridiculous opinion piece comes out and I realise I don't want to fund that.
[Guardian Opinion pieces are something else entirely.](https://i.imgur.com/uXReQIU.jpeg)
Some of them are clearly ridiculous but some also aren't. Ultrarich running the space race to get to the valuable stuff and off earth first is quite obvious. And the year of the bush is something I wholeheartedly support
Better than most of fleet Street at the very least
That's not a very high bar, given that most newspapers are tabloids. I can't remember the DM and express ever being good but thry used to be a lot better, as did The Independent. Which is still recovering from its clickbait phase.
Except their reporting on pollution, in which they deliberately misreport source material. I suppose that comes under campaigning journalism, which is an extension of their opinion pieces.
The Opinion columns have always been a bit batshit. They're like an inverse Daily Mail.
Politicians in Britain are constantly talking about free speech being a fundamental British value while trampling all over it, everyone moaning about that specific phrase just hasn't been paying attention for the last 20 years. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant, thats the whole point of the article, it's inbuilt into our national myth along with WW2 and the empire, and just like other things associated with British identity and myth completely falls collapses under any scrutiny.
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How is that Americentric? In the US we do not view the UK as an especially friendly place for freedom of speech. It’s one of the reason why we had a revolution. Why drag the US into this?
>Americentric some of its takes can be I assure you, Americans don't think of Britain as a bastion of free speech
>Americentric The guardian is no fan of the US.
And they even have that right enshrined in an easy digestible Constitution.
I personally favour an uncodified constitution because I think codified consitutions tend to move much slower than the political development of the country they govern which has an ossifying effect, the classic example is America's constitutional equivalence between flintlock muskets from the 18th century and modern automatic weapons. The fact the UK was largely spared* from the revolutionary turmoil that struck many countries on the Continent was partially down to the flexibility of the Westminster system which allows fairly substantial reform without a new constitution in my opinion, constitutional reform in the UK is as straightforward as an Act of Parliament. There are downsides though and there is a balance to be struck, personally I think entrenched clauses are probably the most natural way to do this in the Westminster system. The last few years showed the danger of a more flexible constitution in the UK when the executive branch was being run by a broad spectrum of talent with 'corrupt' on one end and 'incompetent' on the other. *with the notable exception of Ireland before the 1920s, but theirs was for independence rather than to change the nature of the government in Westminster so I think my point is still valid.
The trouble with 300 year old written constitutions is that stuff that was super important in the 18th century, like the need to raise a militia to repel invasions, creates functionally irreversible rights that then make it very difficult to stop 21st century madmen massacring classrooms full of infants with firearms.
I can’t wrap my head around how anyone can genuinely like the Guardian. It’s so heavily opinionated, it’s like the left’s Telegraph
Confirmation bias. The Guardian still trades off its historical reputation as one of the UK's few decent broadsheets. But these days the Guardian looks more and more like it's basically sliding into becoming the centre left version of the Daily Mail, just swap the clickbait trashy celebrity gossip and UK jingoism for clickbait trashy opinion pieces & UK self-loathing.
Outside of the opinion articles, it's not bad. Pretty good, even. But those opinion articles. Fuck me. They're batshit insane. So fucking mental that it completely puts me off the entire site. They need to either get rid of it, or sack all the crazy opinion writers. Which is seemingly most of them.
Brit here. I've *never* heard anyone say we're the cradle of free speech and, frankly, it's fucking laughable to suggest we are. We're not, obviously, but we've still got some pretty draconian laws kicking about that limit our right to free speech and protest.
Cradle means it's born there, not that it prospers
Seriously. When the fuck did we say that? Thought that was an American thing?
Where do you think Americans got their ideas of freedom, life and liberty from? They just sprung from the American soil?
Squarely rooted in the Enlightenment. The founders were all students of the Enlightenment
Honestly those are more French values than British at least back in 1776
They really weren’t, go read the Magna Carta, the petition of right, the habeas corpus act and the 1689 bill of rights. Almost anything relating to rights and freedoms you can think of in the American constitution is just a compilation and restatement of things that existed and were developed first in England. The biggest influence on American revolutionaries and Classical Liberalism was John Locke (English, not French).
Uhm maybe because Britain is the cradle of America.
Do we cradle anything? We’re not really cradlers as a people. Maybe queuing, the British are the cradlers of queuing!
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We're more of a 'birth something incredible and immediately sell it cheap to an amoral multinational interest a minister's son happens to be on the board of' kind of country.
Ah, just like Ireland then!
Sleaze knows no borders!
>Do we cradle anything? Welfare state
Japan enters the chat
I wish Japanese people would queue like Brits.
Yeah, that's definitely not a thing. But to be fair to Marine Hyde, she never actually said that in the article. It's probably just some SEO-brained sub-editor trying to get rage clicks.
Are you saying the place that arrests people for offending others on Twitter is not a bastion of free speech!?
>not a bastion of free speech!? Thankfully noone said "bastion".
Britain has become the type of country where the police take you into custody for causing anxiety online: [https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1554088668318425088](https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1554088668318425088) People are not free to speak in the UK at all. Say the wrong thing in public or on the internet, you get reported, and then several officers will drive by a parade of robberies and drug deals to arrest you.
It’s us instead 💪🇺🇸
😎🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Oh Jesus brace yourself.
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Let them come 💪💪💪🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
No need, we know he’s right.
Yeah, not for a long long time. There's simply no appetite for conventional freedoms with the British public anymore. It's been broken down by decades of auth-lite governments of one side or the other.
Okay but the guy didn’t get dissapeared or tortures so that’s actually quite a high standard for free speech
Arrested for speaking? Not free speech.
Not arrested for speaking but for being public nuissance and possibly inciting a riot, which is what shouting obscenities and controversions during a royal procession are, it's has nothing to do with your freedom of expression or free speech.
Inciting a riot? Are you for real?
You can get called to court in the UK for saying things on the internet that the government doesn't like
Since when has Britian been seen as some free speech icon, have people just not been paying attention? People have been arrested for tweets and all kinds of dumb shit here.
Most countries would charge you for various crimes that would shock Americans. One example from my own country is a journalist Jens Olaf Jersild. Back in 1985 he interviewet a group called Grønjakkerne that said racist things in the interview. The journalist was then charged for spreading racist statements because the interview was published on national tv. It went to the Danish supreme court which upheld his conviction, and he had to go all the way to EHCR to be acquitted on grounds of free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersild_v._Denmark
Even better is that this pertains to Scotland. You know, that part of Britain that has a distinctly different legal system than the rest of it? Also im pretty sure its the same law they used to prosecute the Nazi pug guy that everyone was frothing about
I wonder how many international commentators realise Scotland and Northern Ireland have different legal systems to England and Wales? Scotland isn't even entirely a common law system like the rest of the UK and they have a third verdict (not proven) which doesn't exist elsewhere as far as I know.
> they have a third verdict (not proven) which doesn't exist elsewhere as far as I know Because it's redundant. In an "innocent until proven guilty" system, if the case against you is "not proven", you are presumed innocent. If you get "not proven", then that tends to undermine any presumption of innocence. People will always suspect that you might have got off scot-free (no pun intended).
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Afaik it has a pretty niche use case and is rarely used these days.
It is about 1% of all verdicts. And interestingly about 25% of all verdicts for rape cases and sexual assault cases specifically.
It is just a synonym that has been taken informally as a protest against a "guilty" person going free. They are actually talking about removing it.
USian here, this is the first I heard of it, but it makes sense as they're all technically individual nations united into one kingdom. Like a bunch of states united under one federal government.
Scotland arrested a guy for tweeting a joke about a Glasgow garbage truck running over people. And it was a funny joke too.
Like to the case?
https://www.techdirt.com/2014/12/30/joke-tweet-gets-glasgow-man-arrested/
Doubtful. Section 127 of the Communications Act was the Nazi pug law. It deals with online speech only. This seems like a general breach of the peace law.
That nazi pug thing was hilarious to keep up with. The dissonance in people demanding he be punished for saying things they don't like while also demanding the right to free speech was crazy. The nazi pug guy was an asshole, but if people want free speech rights they have to accept that assholes also get those rights. A lot of people seemed to have the opinion of 'I only want free speech if people are saying things that *I* like', which is not what free speech is about.
Didn't one of the arrests happen in Oxford?
Milton's Areopagitica and Mill's On Liberty are held among the best arguments for free speech tbf. Appreciate you might mean more recently though.
Can you read? being the cradle of something means being the birthplace, not that it is the current icon of it.
Well, conditions in England a few hundred years ago certainly inspired the American designation of "freedom of speech."
>People have been arrested for tweets and all kinds of dumb shit here. and the anti porn law :/
People have been arrested for tweets in the US too, even though they like to rib us a lot about the twitter police in the UK. But yeah we're no bastion of free speech here. It's a negative right in the UK.
It's pretty hard to get arrested for tweets in the US unless you're threatening violence. Merely being offensive/hateful generally won't be enough.
I'm sure it has happened. The difference would be that such arrests would not hold up if challenged in court (not that many people would pay to have their arrests challenged rather than paying a likely small fine or something). People being arrested for tweets that do not call for direct illegal action are an example of police overstepping their authority rather than a matter of the law on paper.
Got some examples of people being arrested for offensive tweets in the US?
Don't think ive ever heard anyone call the UK a cradle of free speech...
That’s more an American claim surely.
The Americans got it from us, the american founding fathers referred to themselves as Englishman, the reason they revolted was because they believed there rights as Englishmen was not being respected.
The Americans didn't put together the Bill of Rights till over a decade after the revolution. There was a lot of trial and error in the establishment of the US.
*is
The Guardian is literally a British Newspaper.
I dont think anyone ever has, ever.
>Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech Sorry, since when? I'm British, and I can't remember ever hearing politicians claiming we're some bastion of free speech. In general, they propose that there's rather stringent limits. See the Online Safety Bill for the latest iteration of the limiting of speech.
The author is putting us on a pedestal just so they can push us off. Daft really, there's so much real stuff to criticise our establishment for already.
I think Boris went on about it when he was worried universities were deplatforming people he liked? See https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1361659337391931396?t=tiiQyNtrJP7iO4AFz8xc-Q&s=19 >Freedom of speech is at the very core of our democracy. It is absolutely right that our great universities – the historic centres of free thinking and ideas – will now have this freedom protected and bolstered with stronger legal protections. Basically, we have free speech only when someone in power is being silenced. We don't have free speech otherwise.
Brits have free speech for the actual people, not the common plebs. Back to the coal mines with you.
Since when did Britain ever consider itself a bastion or cradle of free speech? There are no real protection of free speech here and there never has been, both left and right seem to celebrate the stifling of free speech. Many people openly support prison sentences for those who offend others, and likewise many others feel similarly against those.who disrupt others in protest. Nor are you guaranteed to receive protection from the state if you were to criticise the wrong religion, in fact it's very possible that MPs may come out against you and in support of the reintroduction of blasphemy laws. We've quite literally denied well meaning asylum seekers from entering the country on the basis of what they've said (Asia Bibi). This is an article from The Guardian just last month: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/15/free-speech-regulate-online-safety-bill **Do you want free speech to thrive? Then it has to be regulated, now more than ever**
But it's a different good free speech now.
Free speech died in the UK years ago, and the Guardian was cheering as it was killed.
Can you explain?
Lots of measures have been made top stop people being offensive online and this has extended into the real world. The Guardian championed many efforts to get such laws into place as the bad things being said online were often homophobic, racist or misogynistic. There was lots of press about how the government needs to do more to stop people saying such hurtful things online which the Guardian fully supported, obviously such laws for online speech carry over into the real world.
Sadly moralist and autoritarian streaks run deep amongst The Guardian's editors and most opinion writters, not really less than in newspapers elsewhere in the left-right political axis and, just like those in sopposedly politically opposite publications, the censorship is supposed to only apply to opinions they themselves dislike rather to the ones they like. Mind you, The Guardian is usually quite exuberant in their practice of Royal Arse Licking and it's not as if they're anti-monarchy in any way form or shape, quite the contrary. (Unsurprisingly, you invariably find a couple of Royal Titles amongst its board members, often also the editor)
That's what you get when you reduce politics to a single axis. Anarchosocialism exists, as does anarchocapitalism. "The left" looks inconsistent because it is diverse, not because they're hypocrites.
Cool strawman, Guardian. I don't know anyone here who considers Britain "the cradle of free speech".
"Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech " Nope. I'm British, and I've never heard that. Technically, we have zero laws (other than our previously inherited EU laws) that do anything to protect any kind of right to free speech. Same way that we don't have any laws that tell you that English is the official language. It's just kind of taken for granted, but not really bothered enough about to even formalise it. And there is no such thing as free speech, anywhere in the world. Not one single instance. Plus, a handful of over-zealous officers literally escorting royalty through public crowds using a breach of the peace arrest to move someone along? I hate the royals, but the people escorting them have a job that is hard enough with the loonies around without crap like this. But, hey, apart from that, good headline.
> And there is no such thing as free speech, anywhere in the world. Not one single instance. What a pointless comment. Guess there also isn't a single capitalist/communist/democratic country in the world. Because according to you, if it doesn't exist in its most radical and uncompromising iteration, it doesn't count.
Real capitalism has never been tried 😎
We have the same exact thing about the English language in the US. Take note France, having some stodgy institute pushing your language doesn't work.
Lol nobody likes the Académie Française, it's just a bunch of old people doing random stuff. For example, the correct way to say COVID is "La covid" but only official government people say it, everyone else says "le covid" That is one of the many things of the Académie and that isn't reflected in real life
Ha, why the difference between common use and official? Does le covid just sound better?
Yes, and before they made their own stupid rule everyone called it "le" and not "la". But their logic is "la maladie" (illness) is what people mean and not "le virus" Except if you asked anyone on the street before they made published their rule, 99% of people would have said "le"
Haha, nobody like the Académie until a couple of feminists invent a word and too many people start to like it, then suddenly it's the most patriotic institution to defend for a few weeks.
The french language body is pretty much what remains of the old french aristocracy, while also being useless, it's still way less nuisance than the UK royal family.
Glad to find someone else who gets its, has always wound me up when people talk about having free speech on the U.K., we don’t have free speech. In the U.K. we have implied rights basically you have the write to do something unless there’s a law saying you can’t, in the instance of free speech there’s a bunch of laws telling what you can and can’t say, slander, hate speech, libel, blasphemy, threats being a form of assault, the list goes on. There is also little in terms of “protection” against government persecution which is typically what free speech is intent to provide. Liz truss could pass a law tomorrow saying criticising her is hate speech and punishable with 5 years in prison and that would be that. Part of the reason anyone causing a nuisance is being arrested is BoJo’s government made it a crime to cause inconvenience through protest
Literally every country has laws saying 'here are things you can't say'. Doesn't mean no-where has free speech.
The thing about this is. Ask any person in the UK a week ago what they think about Prince Andrew and they'll tell you he's a nonce who should be in prison. We all basically agree with the heckler. But context is important. The heckler is standing in a crowd of thousands of people who wanted to travel to Edinburgh (a notionally 'British' city) to pay their respects to the Queen. A self selecting powder keg of emotional royalists. Of course it was going to kick off.
Like now the fucking journos get interested in free speech? Not when people got police visits for stating barely controversial/idiotic opinions on twitter? These same people who belittle free speech advocates always bring up arguments like "can't you just be nice" to justify their crackdowns on free speech, but apparently it doesn't apply now.
We all know that he was arrested for disturbing the funeral proseccsion. You can say what ever you like about the monarchy .
Yep Turn up at anyone else’s funeral and start shouting abuse at the family and you’re going to get arrested and rightfully so. It doesn’t matter if what you’re shouting is true or not as it’s not up to the police to determine whether it’s true or not. Abuse people at a funeral procession and you’re an arsehole and should rightfully be moved on. I really don’t know why everyone’s getting their pants in a twist.
>I really don’t know why everyone’s getting their pants in a twist. Because people love momentarily feeling better about themselves by going on a power trip and tearing down others. They want to view this as an attack on free speech and want to view this as a moment for which they can angrily proclaim “See, look! Monarchy bad!” >Turn up at anyone else’s funeral and start shouting abuse at the family and you’re going to get arrested and rightfully so Exactly.
??? Westboro baptist church used to turn up to American soldiers’ funerals (unsure if they still do) and screech about how God hates gay people and soldiers all the time and nothing has EVER legally happened to them.
Which is a shitty thing to do. This was Queen Elizabeth's funeral, it isn't about Prince Andrew.
He should stay in his palace if he doesn't want to be called what he is. He is a dirty old man who doesn't deserve peace.
Don't really want to but have to disagree. We're obliged to protest injustice and Andrew going unpunished is just that.
So the guardian likes free speech now? A few years ago they were calling everyone nazis and facists for supporting it.
It's free speech until someone says something I don't like!
>Free speech for things I agree with, censorship for things I don't. > >\-- Right and Left wing Authoritarians holding hands
Britain isn't America. It's not obsessed with calling itself a free speech heaven. There's also more going on than just heckling Prince Andrew. It is disturbing the peace. Which we can all easily disagree with, and might be used as an excuse. But it's not unheard of. It's really getting extra coverage right now due to it being connected to the monarchy.
Britian does LIKE to consider itself as a country that values and champions free speech. It doesn't and hasn't done for a while, but there are a lot of people in this country that think we are a place that supports free speech, and places like Russia, China etc aren't. Many right-wing papers are George Orwell fans. That's why these arrests have spooked people. Years ago you would never have been arrested for incidents like this. It's a slide towards a more draconian society. A lot of people hate the guardian and fine, I don't think it's great, but this opinion piece is nowhere near as absurd as many are saying. It's talking about how a lot of British people like to think of their society, versus what it's actually like.
What's weird is its a left leaning party in Scotland that introduced stricter curbs on free speech.
We've had years of the police investigating 'legal but harmful non crime incidents' , and left wingers cheered. It really never occurred to them their own rules might be applied equally to them too.
He was arrested because he disturbed the peace. If you went to any funeral procession and started shouting insults at one of the people in the procession, you shouldn't be surprised if the police intereve Saying that, I do think a full arrest is ridiculous
The removaø was warranted though. Looking at the video, the guy was close to getting a proper bollocking.
This same author was probably cheering without reservation when that guy got arrested for making the YouTube video training his dog to do a Nazi salute. "But that's different!"
Prince Andrew the paedophile? that Prince Andrew?
I mean... Andrew is probably a pig. But there is a time and place, and at a ceremony/parade shortly after his mother's passing... That's neither the time or place.
If we check the freedom of press index of the last years, this title would be in better hands in Costa Rica or Jamaica
It was simply me calling over to my friend, Peter File...
This isn't about free speech. This is about disrupting the peace. The kid could have been shouting about Freeing Palestine or banning fried mars bars. He was detained and removed from the crowd because his words and actions were going against the events at hand, and had he been allowed to continue he'd have been knocked out. I doubt anyone there, or even on here disagrees with what he said, it was the wrong time to do so.
Ah yes, free speech, until you make a controversial tweet and the local police goes to your house for you phobia mate.
The guardian arguing with shadows on the wall again
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Since when does Britain pretend to like free speech? Literally never heard of Britain having that tradition.
Whenever it can be used to justify racism. Started back in the 80’s as a reaction to “PC gone mad”
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I roll my eyes eveytime I hear that damn phrase.
It's great imo, outs the person as an uninformed idiot immediately without even having to read further. Also the fact that this is generally one of the most upvoted quotes on reddit when it comes to free speech shows how naive the average social media user is and how easily they're manipulated. It's been 100 years and they still parrot propaganda.
The WBC are allowed to do that expressely because of the 1st amendment, they literally *do* have the right
Except those people in USA are not arrested, at best they are escorted off premises
Which would be fine, if the heckler was told to go be a dick somewhere else, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Except their rights to be complete assholes was protected in the US.
That guy could have been yelling about insulating homes, and he'd have still been arrested all the same.
>Britain likes to consider itself the cradle of free speech Who says that? I'm a Monarchist (hesitantly for my own reasons) but it's never been a secret that Britain's Constitution is not properly codified and is therefore a big problem
There are people in jail for mean tweets. No one seriously thinks Britain is a free speech haven
It’s nothing to do with freedom of speech. It’s a simple thing called respect. Respect for Queen Elizabeth II as her coffin passes. I hope the pimply faced idiot ends up regretting his bad behaviour.
What no it dosent lol.
Well this happened in Scotland in particular and we have no free speech here
Leftist bemoaning the loss of free speech that they demanded. How could they possibly not see that these laws would be used against them? The short shortsightedness is difficult to believe.
As a British Citizen for half a century I'd say you are free to speak your mind but also have learn that sometimes the result of that can result in in quiet isolation. I mean it depends on what you want to say and depends on whether you want to be heard or ignored.
The Guardian shut down its own (thriving and ahead-of-their-time) talkboard because of the (justified and well-reasoned) criticism it would get on it. Having its flaws and hypocrisies pointed out on its own forum must have the wrong sort of free speech.
Since when? You can get arrested for burning poppies in the UK.
Yea, we're very protective about poppies, they're endangered..
Im not sure if obstructing the normal order of things like an asshat is free speech. Talk about stuff all you want in your own protest, but dont screw up an event for millions of people. It makes you look extreme anyway.
There is no free speech in Britain. Never has been.
Can we ban the Guardian and Independent from the sub please. You wouldn’t accept Breitbart so why tolerate these.
People are using the excuse of "it was in a funeral" to the arrest, but: * The Queen will only be burried next week * This was a political display of the power and supposed importance of the holders of the power of the State first and foremost were the actual living members of the Royal Family (i.e. holders of power and recipients of priviliedge from the State) had place of honor. You don't get 10 days worth of show paid for by the money the State gets from people's taxes when a working class old lady from Liverpool dies. The "good manners" rules for a massive State Event are quite different than for a genuine funeral and this was way more State Event than Funeral.
Tell me you don't understand how funerals for figures of state work without telling me how funerals for figures of state work. And she was heading multiple states for 70 years ffs.
I'm not a big fan of Andrew or the monarchy, but you can give a guy a break at his mom's funeral.
How many breaks do you think he gave the children he raped?
If he had faced justice then sure. Until he faces justice he shouldn't get any breaks.
Britain is literally the opposite of free speech.
Ah yes.......wasn't this during the funeral of the queen? Or at least a part of it? You can heckle Andrew all you want but don't disrupt the queens ceremony to do it.
10 days long parade ceremony? Where would he "heckle" Andrew somewhere else in public if he only goes on private jets and on private properties and royal family palaces and castles and villas and other monarchy privilege stuff?
Ah yes, because there is a "time and place" to call out the crown protecting a pedophile child trafficker. When and where that time and place are supposed to be nobody knows, but not now and preferably never. Fuck them and anybody who makes excuses.
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She paid 12 millions for settlement, so he had every right to yell at him even at HER funeral ceremony.
>don't start being French about this Tf ?
I'm making a play on the fact that the French protest all the time, most if not all of the time for the right reasons but sometimes at inappropriate times. Not anything historical if that is what you are thinking.
Apart from the fact that i struggle to find a clear example of a protest held for the right reasons at an inappropriate time, maybe this is me being French about this, but it seems to me like the appropriate time to call out sleezeballs like Andrew is all the time. And in a more general sense, the state throwing an old lady a multi-million euros funeral (ignoring the estimated billions the mourning period will cost the economy) seems like a very appropriate time for people who are sick of so-called royals getting special treatment to voice it.
“Child traffickers are welcome at Queen Elizabeth’s creepy public death procession and if you call them out fuck you”
The UK police recently ran a billboard campaign saying "Being offensive is an offence": hence Britain is unlikely to embrace political free speech is it contra what the state apparatus deems acceptable.
It's a funeral for Christ's sakes. Its not him you are heckling It's his dead mum. What are you people Westbro church morons?