The persecution of ‘the plebs’

Not so long ago we went to politicians for politics and comedians for comedy. Today, like many others, I watch politicians for amusement and listen to comedians for their political insights.

Whenever I want cheering up, I watch Kamala Harris riffing on a theme of her choice, or sometimes a Labour politician trying to explain why a woman can have a penis. By contrast Joe Rogan analyses political questions better than any of them, as does Noam Dworman, of New York’s Comedy Cellar.

So it was that when the question of free speech returned again recently, I did not turn to the hilarious Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, but instead to the sombre and sage Rowan Atkinson.

Readers may recall that some years back both Labour and a Tory-Lib Dem coalition government tried to keep a law that made ‘insulting’ speech a criminal offence. The person who made the best case against this was Atkinson, who gave a speech in one of the committee rooms in parliament which showed a more astute sense of politics and principle than anything that had occurred in that place for years. While our present government tries desperately to crack down on social-media users, one part of Atkinson’s warnings is especially pertinent.

He noted: ‘I am personally highly unlikely to be arrested for whatever laws exist to contain free expression, because of the undoubtedly privileged position that is afforded to those of a high public profile. So, my concerns are less for myself and more for those more vulnerable because of their lower profile. Like the man arrested in Oxford for calling a police horse gay. Or the teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult. Or the café owner [given a police caution] for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen.’