We Spectator bloggers are now living under a new regime. Rather than posting our blogs
ourselves, we now have to go through the Spectator.com editors. This is all very sensible. Libel is a serious business and you can’t be too careful these days. The Spectator has been a stalwart
defender of freedom of speech and I know Fraser Nelson feels particularly strongly about this.
The closing down of debate – especially on the subject of radical Islam – is something that hits at the heart of democracy and liberal thought. This magazine has been as courageous as it is possible to be in this area without putting the publication out of business and everyone who works for it on the dole.
But there is a wider problem within the body politic as demonstrated by the Phil Woolas case in Oldham and Saddleworth.
Politics is a dirty business and general election campaigning is politics at its dirtiest.
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