In praise of the bloody-minded Paul Chambers

What freedoms we have in Britain have not come as a rule from revolutions and thunderous declarations of the rights of man. More often than not, our liberties have come because bloody-minded and obstinate men and women have squared their shoulders and decided to fight an arbitrary decision, when others would have surrendered.

Paul Chambers has the right to claim a good deal of credit for compelling the Director of Public Prosecutions to stop treating offensive but harmless remarks as crimes. I won’t go through his case in detail because I have told his story elsewhere. But in brief Paul was planning to fly to Belfast to visit a woman friend. He saw on the news that snow had closed Robin Hood Airport and tweeted to his friends, “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” It was a bad joke.