The Millicent Fawcett statue by Gillian Wearing has been unveiled in Parliament Square today. It is the first statue in the square to depict a woman.
Millicent Garrett Fawcett led the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). This was a distinct organisation from the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Unlike the ‘Suffragettes’, Fawcett and the NUWSS eschewed militancy and violence, an approach which appealed to my great-grandmother, Marjory Ingle. Continue reading
Category: Diary (Page 25 of 300)
Things that happen to me, or things I do
Ant McPartlin’s drink driving conviction and record £86,000 fine in Monday gives me an excuse to finally publish a post that has been sitting in blog purgatory for eight years.
Ant’s car crash is the latest example of fabulously wealthy TV and sports stars behaving badly in vehicles. Yaya Touré was handed a record-at-the-time £54,000 fine for drink-driving in 2016. Further back in time, we may recall the former Chelsea defender Ashley Cole was clocked doing 104mph in his Lamborghini, and John Terry has a penchant for parking in disabled bays.
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Joseph Jefferson as Dr Pangloss, by John Singer Sargent (1890)
6/ You may think me naive, or things are too far gone. But I believe – fundamentally – that no problem is beyond solving, particularly where both sides contain good people who want things to be better not worse. But it will be difficult – the above is as minimum to succeed. /end
— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) March 26, 2018
In the past few weeks I’ve been having debates with good people whom I respect deeply about the limits of freedom of expression. When Britian First were banned by Facebook I suggested that the extremists in our society might be moderated and rehabilitated through dialogue.
When I have made this point, my friends have criticised me for being naiive. The bigots are irredeemable (they say) and the best strategy is therefore to cauterise their movement by silencing it wherever we can.
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A quick thought about the nature of ‘responsibility’.
In the Meechan case this week the judge at Airdrie Sheriff Court said:
In my view it is a reasonable conclusion that the video is grossly offensive. The description of the video as humorous is no magic wand. This court has taken the freedom of expression into consideration. But the right to freedom of expression also comes with responsibility.
On the Sky News debate programme The Pledge, presenter Nick Ferrari echoed this sentiment.
With the right to free speech comes a responsibility to use it wisely. This a sentiment I hear a lot and it seems sensible. Personally, I am not convinced it is the rhetorical silver bullet that most people think it is. I can think of examples where a speaker might actually think it very responsible to mock or to offend someone who they believe deserves it. And when journalists expose Official Secrets (as the Guardian did when publishing the testimony of Edward Snowden) there were plenty of people ready to call this kind of publication irresponsible. So ‘responsibility’ is in the eye of the beholder. Continue reading
In Airdrie, Scotland, a man named Markus Meechan has been convicted of posting a grossly offensive video on his ‘Count Dankula’ YouTube channel. He taught his girlfriend’s dog to give a Nazi salute in response to the phrase ‘gas the jews’.
It’s clearly a joke. In fact, he explains as much in the video itself:
Mah girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute her wee dug is, and so I thought that I would turn him into the least cutest thing that I can think of, which is a Nazi.
This is clearly in poor taste. However, making offensive jokes should not be a criminal offence.
Many people have been sharing this Jonathan Pie video, where the frazzled reporter voices indignation that the conviction has happened.
Comedians Ricky Gervais and David Baddiel also discussed the context and why this sort of thing is funny.
Over on Sp!ked, columnist Andrew Doyle suggests that the context makes the Count Dankula conviction absurd. To secure a conviction, the prosecution has to wilfully misunderstand the context of the video.
I have a couple of things to add.
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