The shocking police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson last week has rightly sparked grave concern about the parlous state of freedom of speech in Britain. For a tweet she posted last year, Pearson is under investigation for “stirring up racial hatred” under the Public Order Act 1986, which regular readers will know can carry penalties of years behind bars. In a period when pro-Gaza marches were flooding the capital every Saturday, Pearson reposted a video showing two south Asian-looking men holding a green and red flag on a British street next to a group of police officers. “How dare they,” she wrote. “Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
It has struck me that many of the free speech advocates to criticise the authoritarian investigation into Pearson this week have done so on what one might call empirically minded lines. Where is the evidence, for instance, that any disorder did actually result from Pearson’s post? One prominent human rights lawyer, arguing in the Telegraph that Pearson did not deserve a visit from the police, has said that an investigation should only have proceeded “if damage has demonstrably been done during the time [the tweet] was up”. Assessing whether or not the tweet ought to have merited such a heavy-handed response, Pearson and her lawyers have looked carefully at the wording and concluded that it does not meet the “threshold” for criminality.
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a donor will also entitle you to comment below the line, discuss articles with our contributors and editors in a members-only Discord forum and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’d like to listen to the premium podcast but can’t see a way of doing so on my preferred podcast player, Overcast. If any of you use Overcast and listen to the premium podcast, can you please let me know how you do it.
Cheers
Press the “+” icon at the top right of the main Overcast screen (where it lists your podcasts), then press “Add URL”. That’s where you need to paste the URL into.