July 29, 2025 • 44 mins
The story of the Eye reader who printed out a joke from the Eye, took it to a march… and got arrested. Page 94 interviews the man at the centre of the story, and the team discuss in a Free Speech Summer Special.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Hello, and welcome toanother episode of Page 94.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, andI'm here in the private eye office.
This episode is going to be a slightlyupside down one in the second half.
Uh, we're going to be joinedby Ian, Helen, and Adam.
But in the first half we're goingto have an interview, and the
reason for that is that this is ourSummer Freedom of Speech special.
Uh, we're gonna be talking aboutpolicing, about protest, and
(00:26):
about prescribed organizations.
The reason this is in the news so muchat the moment, uh, was all kickstarted,
by a group called Palestine Action.
Now a prescribed organization,but until recently, uh, simply
a, a direct protest group.
Their direct protests, uh, on behalfof the Palestinian calls culminated
at the start of July when somemembers of the group broke into an
(00:47):
RAF base and sprayed paint into theentrance of two military aircraft,
which the group claimed were helpingto refuel American and Israeli jets.
Just a few days later, plans wereannounced, uh, to ban the group, uh, by
the government, and it is now categorizedas a prescribed organization on roughly
the same level as Islamic State, saywhen the government prescribed Palestine
(01:10):
action, the home office minister DanJarvis said that that prescription.
Quotes would not impinge onpeople's right to protest.
Those who wish to protest or expresssupport for Palestine have always been
able to and can continue to do so.
That has not been strictly true.
Dozens of people have been arrested notonly for holding placards, supporting
Palestine action, but many more.
(01:30):
Uh, for holding placards,which were not about.
The group Palestine action was simplyin support of the Palestinian cause.
And recently one man in West Yorkshirewas arrested for holding a placard,
which although it mentioned thewords Palestine and action, uh, was
not a placard supporting the group.
And we can say that for surebecause it was a joke, uh,
from the last issue of eye.
(01:50):
John Farley, a retired head teacher fromYorkshire, had printed out the joke,
which he thought made a good point.
He put it on a placard andpromptly found himself arrested
by the West Yorkshire police.
He was bundled into a police Van.
He was driven to the nearestpolice station where he was
held for about six hours.
Uh, he eventually got a solicitor andwas interviewed, by counter terror
police before eventually being releasedon bail, uh, pending any charges.
(02:12):
Charges, which werenot eventually brought.
Uh, and it's a good thing that Mr.Farley is still at liberty because
it means he's free to join us now.
John.
Hello?
Hi there.
John, you went on this march, wasit a Palestine action march or was
it simply a pro-Palestine march.
No, it wasn't Palestine action.
It's organized by Leeds Branchof Palestine solidarity campaign.
(02:35):
They've been doing them, almostcontinuously since the situation started.
And I've, I've been on quite a few.
I've not been on all of them, youknow, but I've been on quite a few.
So, uh, you went on this march, youhad a placard with you, we should
say at the start of things thatit was a joke from Private eye.
Can you just tell us whatthe joke was, please?
(02:58):
Yes, I can.
It, it, it said at the top in quotes,Palestine Action explained, and then
underneath it had in sort of on redbackground, unacceptable Palestine
action,, spraying military planeswith paint the other bit in green
it said acceptable Palestine actionshooting Palestinians queuing for
(03:20):
food, and I should add, actuallyunderneath, I put copyright symbol,
private eye, uh, number 1, 6 5 3.
And that was really the thing, thepunchline, if you like, for it.
Because the march was about the denialof food aid to, that was the theme.
It was a silent march andthat was the theme of it.
(03:40):
Can you tell us in your ownwords, what happened on the day?
it was a silent march, which wedon't, which you sometimes do.
So it was very solemn, you know, um,people were carrying boxes to symbolize
the aid that's been denied into Gaza.
So I'm holding this up and I, I passedserious policemen on the, on the way.
And then I was more than, wewere more than halfway round.
(04:02):
And I saw two officers on the sideand they just, they saw me and
made a beeline straight to me.
And I thought, theymust have good eyesight.
'cause you know, I wasn'tthat near them, but they said,
can we have a word with you?
And I said, well, can he come to thepaper and have a word with me, us?
And I said, well.
We can have a word here if you like,and they said, no, we want you.
(04:23):
So then they just grabbed me by thearms, took me to the pavement and
I'm not quite sure how, but some,I ended up sitting on the pavement.
I think I went a bit limp as theydragged me over and, and they
said, it's about the placard.
And I went, oh, I.
I brought the private eye with me.
'Cause I thought possibly somebodymight say something to me, you know?
(04:44):
Um, so I, I said it's in,it's in, uh, my rucksack.
I couldn't show you private eyes from mag.
It's from that.
It's from, and, and at thatpoint I realized that I
had a handcuff on one hand.
And they were saying, you're under arrestunder Section 12, the Terrorism Act.
I thought they might saysomething to me first, but they
(05:06):
just, and I was a bit surprised.
So then they said, you are resisting.
I said, I'm not.
And he said, but your arms are tense.
And I thought to myself,I, I feel pretty tense.
I've just been drug to thepavement by two cops, you know?
Uh, anyway, they put the handcuffs onand they said, will you walk to the Van?
So I said, well, I will, if you takethe handcuffs off, let me show you the
(05:28):
magazine and you can see where it's come.
You know?
And I kept saying, it's acartoon from Private Eye.
It's, and eventually people stood aroundme, they all started, they heard that and
went, it's a cartoon from Private Eye.
It's a cartoon from, soit went on like this?
No, they weren't interested.
And as I did suggest before, Idon't know, but I think they've not.
(05:52):
They weren't readers and theymay not have heard of it.
You know, their loss, their loss.
I was in shock to be honest.
it was really only when I gotin the Van I thought, crikey,
so you would, you would, I presume,driven off from the protest?
Yeah.
yeah, uh, yeah, they, people sortof surrounded a Van and that, but
obviously they, they took me away.
(06:12):
And then lying back in the, uh, VanI was on the floor, I said to them,
they said to, what's your name?
And it was beginning to sink in then.
And I said, well, look,take the handcuffs off.
'cause I thought, I'm in the Van.
I'm not gonna get in twoburly coppers, you know?
Um, and I'll show you the no.
And then, so he found my bus pass andhe said, oh, you are your Alan Farley.
(06:37):
Because before that he said.
Well, if you don't tell meyour name, what can I call you?
And I said, call me sir. Andwhich seemed reasonable enough,
but he didn't like that.
, So by this stage I thought, well,you know, I better not say anything
else now then I got booked in.
I was.
Feeling a bit stroppy by then.
So they said things like, are youvulnerable or do you feel vulnerable?
(06:59):
And I said, yes, I do.
And they looked at me a bit surprised.
They said, well, I'm in apolice station and, you know,
I presume this is your first arrest,
yes.
they give you cards out witha solicitor's number on.
On the demo, which I've had inmy pocket and I've never used,
obviously, and they said it's betternot to use the duty solicitor.
(07:21):
You get them to ring this one.
Could I find this card?
No.
And I accused falsely I apologizedto wish I falsely called,
accused you of throwing it away.
In fact, it was tucked intomy phone case all the time.
I found out upon release, but I, Iluckily I could remember the name
and they said, oh yes, we know them.
We can call them.
And I could just aboutremember my wise phone number.
(07:44):
So I asked them to call herand they never did, to be fair.
but she was also on the march, butelsewhere, so she was one of the last
people to find out that I'd been arrested.
So then they said, do you wantto read the, uh, police and
criminal evidence, uh, guidance?
And I thought, well, I'm, I dunno howlong I'm gonna be in there and they
won't let me take my copy of private eye.
(08:07):
Uh, so I said yes.
So I've read most of WestYorkshire's guidance.
they took my fingerprints.
They took DNA swabs, Then I got a callfrom the solicitor via the intercom,
which was hard to make out, but she said,don't worry, I'll be there fairly soon
and I asked, could she ring my wife?
And she took the number and shedid ring my wife, I had a Cup of
(08:27):
tea, they gave me a Cup of water.
I had a fairly horrible.
heated up meal.
How long were you held all in?
just over six hours.
I think I was arrested just beforetwo and I got out about eight.
Oh, I gotta see a nursewhile I was in as well.
Um, because I'd asked my medica,I'm mass, I'm mildly asthmatic,
(08:48):
and I'd ask my medication.
'cause in a stressful situation it can bea bit worse, you know, which somebody got
and brought down to the police station.
And I got to see a nurse, veryfriendly nurse, a paramedic, NHS.
And one of the things she did was take myblood pressure and I said, oh, I'm going
to see my doctors about that this week.
and she said, well, you can tellthem your blood pressure's fine.
(09:11):
Which it was.
Which considering Yes, exactly.
So I've, I thought that was an un, youknow, I thought, well that's one positive
that's come out of today, you know
Then the solicitor came,we had a brief chat.
She said, look, I advise you.
Just no comment, no questionsbecause you, if we're gonna have
a debate, we'll have it in court.
They asked me all sorts of questions.
(09:31):
I mean, one of the questions, Ican't remember what it was, but
he sort of, I rolled my eyes as hesaid it and he sort of looked a bit
apologetic and said, I know, butwe do have to ask these questions.
I'm sure you understand at.
is this questions about whetheryou were a member of Palestine
action or a member of aprescribed organization,
they said, do you supportPalestine actions?
Obviously, I said, no comment.
(09:52):
Um, or I might have justsaid no to that one.
and then they said, did someoneforce you to carry this placard?
Did you make it?
Did somebody else make it?
And one of them, one of them said,this is the counter-terrorism police.
He said, I see the advert.
And the magazine was verysmall and I thought advert, I
thought, what's going on anyway?
(10:14):
I said, uh, he said, he said,did you blow it up yourself?
And I thought, you're counter-terrorism.
Police don't say things like that to me.
That's a very leading question to ask.
Yeah.
well, but
they.
your placard would'vebeen one inch square, so,
well, exactly, yes.
So through that interview Iback and I thought, are they
(10:35):
taking this, that seriously?
I wonder if they are, you know, thesolicitors felt quite confident.
She said, I think, you know,she said, don't know, but, you
know, got quite a strong case.
okay, so eventually you werereleased without charge.
yes, well, no.
I raised on bail chargesgoing, pending, going.
They said they were gonna send my file tothe CPS.. they hadn't committed an offense
(10:58):
and they, they must have been beginningto think, you know, what's in this?
and my bail conditions said I wasn't togo on any Palestine action demos or mark
protests, and I said to the solicitor,I wasn't on a Palestine action protest.
And I've never been on one.
And in any case, aren't they illegal?
So at this point, John, I probably havean apology to make to you, um, because
(11:21):
it was actually me who wrote that jokefor private eye and I. I did not think
would have a result because the classicresult of writing a joke for the mag
is nothing, nothing happens at all.
Uh, and so it wasn't our intention toget anyone banged up, uh, particularly
not if they haven't done anything wrong.
So I'm very sorry about that.
Well, it's not your fault.
I saw it and I I did think that will makea good placard, not least because it's.
(11:47):
Different from the standardones that are handed out.
You know, the same same old, you know,everybody's heard the same stuff before
and I thought this is a clever, anuanced take, but makes the point really
well, you know, good old private eye.
It'll have been through the lawyers.
What could go wrong?
I thought,
yeah
so did you know aboutPalestine action before?
(12:09):
Did you know that thisgroup had been prescribed?
I'm sure you keep up withthe issue in general.
I'd heard of them and yes, andI was aware of the prescription.
So, you know, and, and I. I knew I didn'twant to do what other people have done
and gone out and saying they support them.
But when I could say, I saw that and Ithought that uses that phrase, but in
(12:30):
a different way to make the point aboutpeople are being shocked, queuing for food
, um, we're gonna be talking a bit later onin the podcast, um, with the, with the IT
team about freedom of speech, heavy handedpolicing, all of this kind of thing.
I mean.
In your opinion, do you think whathappened to you was simply really clumsy
policing, or do you think it kind ofindicates a general problem with freedom
(12:52):
of speech at the moment in the uk?
I'd say a bit of both.
I mean, they were clumsy because theydidn't give any chance to explain.
The solicitor said to me later, theydidn't even give you what words of
advice, I believe is the phrase.
but they chose to arrest me.
somebody showed me avideo that had been taken.
There's people who follow us aroundvideoing us and they post them and
(13:14):
and it showed the Van driving around.
Parking up, they walked out, stood tothe side and then as soon as I came by,
they would come straight out for me.
So I think they'd already seen the,I dunno, I presume they'd seen the
sign at some point and thought,right, we're gonna arrest him.
So yeah, I think it was clumsy,but also they weren't, I think,
(13:36):
right, we need to get off thestreet straight away sort of thing.
I wasn't thinking I'd get arrested.
I thought they might say, I thoughtperhaps, perhaps they'll say something.
Somebody, a friend said tome, oh, you sure about that?
I said, well, it's been in private.
Ah, you know, so I wasn'tcompletely oblivious to it,
but I thought at the worstthey'd say, you can't carry it.
You know, or whatever.
(13:56):
You know?
Now I've just said, allright, you have it, you know?
As it turns out, stuff beingprinted in private eye is not.
I guarantee that you won't besued over it as the magazines
found out to its cost many times
that's true.
very dangerous, very dangerous idea.
Um, so part of this, was shuttingdown the use of those words on any
(14:17):
placards whatsoever, no matter whatthe context was., What happened next?
Did it work?
Has this absolutely been chilledand shut down and the words have
never appeared again on a placard?
quiet the opposite.
Well, on Monday they rang me at 10 30and said No further actions being taken.
I said, would you?
And they said, would you like that?
Emailed her in write.
I said, write to me.
Well, I've had the lettersaying that although it says.
(14:40):
They still reserved a right toinvestigate further, you know,
but no, quite the opposite.
Last Saturday we had another march.
And I reckon there was a double,the number of people there.
Uh, my son came along, friends Ihadn't seen for ages came along.
And then as we were going around,I thought that looks familiar.
And it turned out somebody had madeabout 50 copies of the placard that I
(15:04):
had and were carrying around and, youknow, and I thought, I mean, somebody
had one hanging from his carrier bag.
I thought that was very casual.
And there was one, one person, he had oneand he would, he was walking along and
he left the march and he'd walk up to apoliceman, stand next to them, and at the
end, um, somebody was collecting them inand some people said, oh, can I keep it?
(15:27):
So, so there's, there's probably a fewhanging up in people's houses somewhere.
So, yeah, no, it's had the oppositeeffect and lot, I've had so many messages.
. In fact, an old friend who I haven't seen.
well, since the eighties.
he sent me a mess.
He found me on Twitter or ex and,and sent me a message and said he,
we were at school together and hesaid, I'm having a birthday party on
(15:50):
Saturday, next Saturday in London.
Can you come down?
So I am, so it's workingas friends reunited.
So there you go.
There you go.
If you want to connect with an oldfriend, uh, just pick up your copy of
private eye, find the most inflammatorydrug you can and print it out.
Yeah,
Thank you so much forspeaking to us, John.
(16:11):
that's, that's my pleasure.
so now for the second of the show, I'mstill in the private eye office, but
I'm joined now by Helen Lewis, AdamMcQueen and Ian Hislop, and this is
gonna be our summer free speech special.
Very exciting.
Something to listen to on the beach.
So, um, yes, Palestineaction was prescribed.
Interesting little bonus info for youhere, the same day as, the Maniac's
(16:34):
Murder Cult and the Russia ImperialMovement, which are two neo-Nazi groups.
So, Palestine Action is, classifiedas a terrorist organization, which is.
I think an interesting conflation ofa, a protest group and a terror group.
so the nature and scale of a group'sactivities, I believe have to be taken
into account before you prescribe it.
And most of Palestine actions,actions, uh, had been.
(16:57):
Marches, protests, that kind of thing,rather than breaking into places.
Does
this follow climate groups as well,like extinction rebellion, getting
designations as, uh, as targeted groups?
it certainly follows very heavysentences being dished out to members
of, uh, climate groups, which havetaken direct action that that is true.
But what's also true is that presumablybreaking into a military base and.
(17:19):
damaging planes is also covered byexisting criminal laws, isn't it?
I, I believe it is.
Yes.
And
this was the argument, um, insidegovernment, um, before they, they
rushed to do this and there were voicessaying, Don't do this in a hurry, it
may end up making you look ridiculous.
and before private I had written thisjoke, we had written a number of pieces
(17:40):
saying, if you're going to do this, um,surely it's covered by criminal damage.
There are ways of prosecuting peopleif that's what you want to do,
without making them a terrorist group.
Um, and also without making peoplewho support any sort of action about.
Palestine, um, into supporters.
It was obviously going to conflatethings that, um, would lead to
(18:03):
misunderstandings and in thiscase the arrest of, of poor John.
And it's also crazy to leave thosedecisions at an operational level
at actual demonstrations, isn't it?
Because, I mean, there are, thereare many difficult things that,
that coppers on the beat have to do.
Possibly passing private eyejokes and deciding whether or
not they're offensive or funny.
Shouldn't really be oneof those should, are they?
I mean, it just strikes me asa really, really badly drafted
(18:24):
all, like a lot of these kindof kneejerk things that come in.
Hey, so I'm thinking also youremember the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Yep.
And that came in and suddenlypolice were having to make
decisions on what breed a dog was.
You know, when they're not trained upby the Kennel Club, it take the time
to, uh, to make these things specific.
Yes.
I'm still in shock over the fact thepolice officer who made the arrest
didn't know what private eye was,which is, um, you know, uh, a really
(18:46):
shocking thing in the modern world.
He should be in
prison, is what you're saying.
Well, John,
no.
It's a deep failure.
Mr. Mr. Farley said that he keptsaying, look, can I just get my copy
of private eye out of my rux rucksack?
But if you've just arrested someoneon a potential T charge, and they
keep saying, can I go and getsomething from my bag to show you?
Yeah.
Fair point.
(19:06):
They didn't, uh, they didn'tgo for that for some reason.
So, Ian, is this.
Is this just badly drafted law then havingits inevitable consequence on the streets?
Yes.
if you are told, um, to take some sortof, I hate to say the word action, um, uh,
when demonstrations happen and it's reallyunclear what you are meant to do, then.
(19:27):
Ridiculous things will happen.
and this is both absurd.
And also, I mean, he, hespent six hours in custody.
You know, he was, he was puton the ground and cuffed.
It's not nothing.
Mm. Yeah.
Um, and the freedom speech issueis something that's important
at the moment, and we get itevery which way at private eye.
(19:48):
Nearly all the time.
There's someone who wants to bana joke from the last issue or
a piece from the last issue, orsays, why do you never write about
antisemitism when we've writtenthree pieces about it in that issue?
Or why do you,, accept that?
Um, we need a new blasphemy law withIslamophobia, which we didn't do.
And there are concerns there.
(20:09):
you have to, I think, have whatJohn called nuance here, and
that's in the legislation thatcan't be in the policing of it.
I think it's a particularly difficultone because actually this is a subject
on which Britain's politicians areuntil now have been actually slightly
outta touch with popular opinion.
So the kind of elite popular opinionabout Israel's right to exist and
(20:29):
the, and being supportive and anally to Benjamin Netanyahu actually
in the polling the British publicis a lot more skeptical of Israel.
Its government, its actions inPalestine, the Gaza Strip than, than
our kind of political class has been.
So I think that's aparticularly dangerous time.
For, you know, because we hear allthe time about all politicians are so
outta touch, this is a way in whichpeople really feel that their, their
(20:50):
voices weren't, weren't being heard.
And now more than 250 mps from acrossthe parties have all signed a letter
put together by Sarai champion andcalling, um, for a Palestinian state.
Now to some extent, that'sa symbolic question.
At this point in time, I don't
believe we get to make the call.
Right, exactly.
Since Mandate Palestine, it's not reallyup to us anymore, but nonetheless, it's
(21:10):
a, it's a point about the fact that lotsof mps are constantly hearing from their
constituents and not just people with,uh, large numbers of Muslim constituents,
although you'll note those peopleare really well represented in this.
But across the political spectrum, peopleare feeling real unhappiness from people.
It's not a kind of lefty liberalhand ringing kind of concern.
This one,
and I think there the realization hasdawned that there are protests in Israel.
(21:33):
There are opposition newspapers,um, in Israel written by Israelis,
which have been rather more strident.
than any press in Britain I think therethe last few days and, you know, a
couple of really shocking pictures andvideos have slightly changed the climate.
Yeah, so, uh, Benjamin Ashu has saidthere is quotes no starvation in Gaza,
(21:55):
and there is a lot of kind of truth theismaround about some of the more, um, high
profile photos saying that one of the,the babies who look really malnourished
actually has a kind of muscular disorder.
Nonetheless, you know, there are just.
So many reports from inside that aid hasbeen having difficulties getting through.
It's, you know that the food cuesper your joke are really violent and
dangerous for people to get into.
(22:15):
To the extent that Trump was askedabout it this week in Turnberry,
in his appearance with Kier, andhe said, this is a classic Trump
answer from what I see on tv.
A lot of people look hungry.
That's, that's how hedoes his policy making.
And, and you know, but, but you know,and the fact is that Israel has declared
an effective ceasefire daylight hours.
In order to get aid to get throughis the closest you'll ever get to a
(22:37):
kind of concession that actually thesituation had become intolerable.
you know, one of my friends said they'djust seen the picture of that baby and
gone home and hugged their own baby.
Right.
I just think lots of people, particularlyparents, see photos like that and it
hits them really, really viscerally.
I think you're right as well about theway that it's crossing the usual lines.
It isn't just the usual suspects.
Um, I was really interesting thatone of the first papers to go big on
(22:57):
those photos last week in the sortof live aid type presentation of.
We need to do something about, this wasthe Daily Express, which did a, a full
page, really, really shocking pictureof one, one of those emaciated children.
So, you know, it, it isn't just, asyou say, you know, a le lefty rabble
browsers that are onto this one.
It is really crossing alot of political lines.
Well, like Alan Kirby, the um,Syrian little boy who dry coming
off a boat, you know, and that wasacross the media, including right
(23:18):
wing papers who otherwise are veryconcerned about illegal boat crossings.
I think there is just a thing thatpeople really don't like to see
pictures of children suffering and,you know, you would have to be.
Even more outta touch than DonaldTrump not to recognize that, which
is unfortunately, it turns out whereBenjamin Netanyahu is right now.
Right.
And also the, the Netanyahu line that,Israel has the right to defend itself,
(23:38):
does not extend in most people'simaginations to starving children.
And that becomes an issue.
And when he says, um, there'snothing I can do about this, then.
Decides, yes, there issomething I can do about this.
'cause internationally this isgetting a bit, hot even for him.
Then somehow there are, ways, ofdefending the convoys that come in.
(23:59):
There are ways to pausethe fighting, suddenly.
This, problem is not insoluble.
Um, and that I think is,is a fairly major giveaway.
Mm-hmm.
Questions about free speech always endup coming down to questions about power.
Right.
Who are you allowed to criticize?
Who are you, which our groupsnecessarily treated the same.
And so, you know, this is something thatI think you'd find traditionally left wing
(24:20):
Palestine protesters to say, we are notbeing treated the same at the same time.
You'll get.
There's big, big moves on the right tosay things like, the people who supported
the riots last year, you know, havehave received unduly harsh sentences.
You know that they will say thatyou can't criticize immigration,
you can't criticize small boats.
These are clamped down on, Ithink all of these arguments
end up to some extent becoming.
What Abouty, which goes back to yourpoint, Ian, which is the idea that you
(24:43):
just need to have some sort of broaderprinciples and the police need to be seen
to applying them equally, not based on whois a favored or disfavored group to the
police at that particular point in time.
I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, the, the, the kind of key oneon, on, on that side is the case of
Lucy Connolly, who, uh, was the womanwho tweeted an incredibly offensive,
um, um, and tweet at the time ofthose riots last summer, uh, well
(25:06):
she called for an asylum hostelto be set on fire, didn't she?
Yeah.
She said to set on fire, I don'tcare, burn the bastar for all I care.
She did think better of it, but shehad this slight misfortune that by
that point it had been, um, reposted940 times and viewed 310,000 times,
which is one of those cases of.
Where the line is between social media andjust something you might say to a friend
in a kind of hotheaded moment, isn't it?
(25:27):
Because that, that, thatwent slightly beyond it.
But she was, and this has become a sortof core celebrity in certain circles.
She pleaded guilty to inciting racialhatred, but she was given an, in what
does seem to me like an incrediblyharsh sentence, 31 months, which is
way beyond some of the people who areactually physically involved in some
of the violence out those protests.
Um, but there's an odd linewith that because it's.
Become such a causecelebrity on, on the right.
Now that it's sort of the unfairness ofthe sentence has been kind of looked over
(25:51):
into this, this more sort of, it shouldbe an absolute free for all and anyone
should be allowed to say anything online.
Yes.
The, I mean, the argument has movedfrom, is 31 months excessive to, well,
she should have the right to say that.
The traditional line is that, um,uh, we all believe in freedom of
speech, but that doesn't extend toshouting fire in a crowded theater.
But nowadays, what people are shoutingis, let's set fire to the theater.
(26:15):
Which is slightly different.
And I would say the Connollycase does prove that.
can I ask, I know this varies a lotinternationally, and I read one argument
claiming that had Lucy Connolly writtenthat tweet in America, given that it did
not call for a specific act of violence,for example, she would most likely not
have been arrested, charged, imprisoned.
(26:37):
So is this, I mean, is there adifference between saying, I would
like this particular person to beattacked and saying, oh, Burned
the lot down for all I care.
Well, again, I think this comes back tothat initial point that we made about
these guidelines need to be really,really carefully drafted because, I
mean, I've read stuff by, by very eminentlegal commentators saying Actually,
you know, according to the sentencingguidelines, this was completely,
(26:58):
it went to the court of appeal.
Who, who said that it wasn't manifestlyunjustly, it stands as a sentence.
But in that case, maybe we do needto have a look at the sentencing
guidelines on that thing.
'cause that does seem a crazysituation where inciting violence
gets, gets a harsher sentencethan committing violence itself.
Yeah.
And the Scott in Scotland, theywanted to go even further than that.
They wanted an offensive stirringup hatred that you could be, uh,
(27:19):
guilty or even in, in your own home.
Even in kind of Adam's example of sayingit to your, your own family, right.
Which didn't ever, ever go through.
But like there are, that isdefinitely a force in political life
at the moment, is that people dowant more restrictions on speech.
And look, I can see why, you know,I think lots of people feel very.
Worried about violence and harm.
You know, I know lots of Jewishpeople feel that there's been
a real uptick in antisemitism.
(27:40):
And if you go on some of those Palestinemarches, I, I went on one now, 18
months ago, and the vast majority ofpeople there were completely peaceful
and making a legitimate al statement.
But there were also really grim vilesigns that were slipped in amongst them.
And this again, I think comesback to the how much can the
police be expected to do that?
They always have to make a callwhen there are things that obviously
(28:02):
cross the line about is it worth.
The ruck to go in and sort that out?
Or are we actually gonna, at thatpoint, does it tip into violence?
Right.
They are making.
Fine policing distinctions.
and they were criticized on a number ofthose marches for not arresting people
who had paraglider symbols on theirback on the grounds that, um, well,
we're not quite sure what that means.
And then those people were subsequentlyarrested after public pressure and
(28:25):
then were not given, a custodialsentence, if you remember, on the
grounds that emotions were running high.
we, we should say that Paraglidersbeing the ones that we used by Hamas
in, in the October attacks on Israel.
Yeah.
So it cuts both ways.
This why don't the police act?
usually because they're not quitesure or because as you said earlier,
(28:46):
they're worried about stirring up.
Real trouble, um, in which, uh, arrestingpeople, turns into something else.
I mean, all these points are appreciated,but, uh, the essential principle
is, um, if people are committing anoffense, they should be arrested.
If they're not, they shouldn't.
that's
inherent to the problem, isn't it?
I mean, having covered the feminismwars for more than a decade, the
(29:07):
problem is when you give police theability to make these distinctions,
they tend to err on the side of who isquite easy to arrest and right in front
of me now, rather than like dealingwith mobile phone thefts or whatever.
So there have been some.
Kind of really, you know, likepeople, uh, uh, uh, you know, someone
said at some point the suffragetteribbons were a threatening sign.
You know, that there, there isjust this wildly over expansion
(29:29):
of what constitutes threat.
you know, there are people withinlabor who'd like to bring back
blasphemy laws, for example, right?
As a kind of way of saying religiousoffenses also kind of a harm.
And at the same time, you've got this muchgreater idea that speech can cause harm.
There's just been two, thisis tangentially related.
Two Jewish comedians have justbeen, had their bookings canceled
(29:50):
at the, uh, Edburg Fringe.
And one of the, uh, rationales givenwas the venue saying, our staff
are worried about being unsafe.
Now this used to happen to feministmeetups all the time during the 2010s, and
the problem was, it was essentially sayingwe're gonna have protestors and we can.
Hack that.
, Back in 2020, I was supposed to bedoing an event at the South Bank Women
of the World Festival for DifficultWomen, and on my panel were Amad Weer.
(30:11):
Played netball for England.
Aisha has Eureka, who's now in theLords, and Julie Bindle, the feminist
campaign on lots of things includinggrooming, gangs, and also gender.
And I got a phone call from the venuetwo nights before saying the staff union
has said that because Julie Bindle isgoing to be there, they don't feel safe.
And I thought, she gonnalike, heck you about.
She doesn't like Pan Tony.
That's about the worstthing that's gonna happen.
(30:33):
But it was, and, and they triedto, you know, essentially get
me to cancel her on her behalf.
And I said, well, look, if she walks, Iwalk and I phone the other two panelists
and they said the same and it went ahead.
And guess what?
We didn't even talk about trans stuff,which was obviously what was behind it,
because the book isn't about that, the.
But it was this sense that you couldsuddenly just get anything canceled
just by saying it's a safety issue.
(30:53):
It's a safety issue.
It's a safety issue.
And I think there has to be a certainlevel of robustness that people can be
incredibly offensive up to the point ofinvoking really unpleasant stereotypes.
Nonetheless, it is not thesame as violence and I, and
I think that distinction is,is increasingly getting lost
and I, I think just saying, the staff areeither feeling unsafe or being unsafe.
(31:14):
It would mean very little gets published.
I mean, certainly the Satanic verses,um, but all the controversy after that.
One of the things that, that, broughtup was if people are sufficiently
violent in their reaction to whatthey perceive to be blasphemy,
uh, then nothing gets published.
and again, I don't think that is, uh, aposition that the law should be taking.
(31:36):
I mean, I remember feeling not entirelycomfortable in this very office in 2015,
the week after the Charlie Hebdo massacre,when every single news, uh, news, um,
broadcast seemed to be describing it asthe equivalent of private eye in the uk.
Oh, we're really not actually,but you know, you turn up because
you believe in something and you.
You do the work, and I probably wouldfeel better if I was different about
it, if I was, you know, behind the baron minimum wage in Edinburgh venue.
(31:59):
But again,
but sure.
When I was reading it, I was thinkingabout your Tommy Wild Blood novels and
the fact that so many LGBT campaignersthrough the seventies and eighties,
they went to work in drag shows andin standups when they knew there'd
be a, might be well be a police raid.
Right.
And they'd all be carted off.
Mm-hmm.
Like that was real bravery.
If you believe in.
A certain level of free speech.
You know, you, there are risks that youtake them, and I think if you work in a
(32:20):
venue that is a comedy venue or a standupvenue or a free speech venue, that's
sort of part of the, the vibe, isn't it?
There there are other other bars you couldwork in that are completely apolitical.
Well, two of those acts areapolitical, aren't they?
Well, so the one of the comedian,one of the comedians that had,
had, they essentially done what Iconsider to be slightly tedious.
What about online saying, oh,you're protesting about Palestine,
(32:41):
but what about the hostages?
Now I just find that's a sort ofroute one thing when you just want
to kind of, you know, just makeeverybody just derail what everyone's
currently talking about, mate, andtalk about what you want to talk about.
But it's absolutely legitimatelevel of free speech.
Disagree with his emphasisin that particular conflict.
It was a Jewish cabaret involvingJewish and non-Jewish artists.
And then a show called UltimateJewish Mother, which I'm just
(33:03):
gonna guess was probably aboutlike having a Jewish mother.
I mean, maybe, maybe it was a trenchantcommentary on the Middle East.
But that's the problem is thatthere's just an incredible
heckler veto on, on speech.
And then I think the same thing happenswith these groups, which is saying
even voicing support for someoneis the same as doing it, you know?
, That the speech itself isseen as a kind of harm.
So this is what I mean aboutfavored and disfavored groups.
(33:26):
I, I came into this debate in the 2010sfrom the kind of feminist perspective of
the internet was causing a huge uptickin abuse of women and minorities thinking
something should be done about that.
And actually almost every time I'veseen tightening up of speech laws, it
has ended up affecting whoever has gotthe currently unfashionable opinions.
And I'm just not sureyou can get past that.
(33:47):
Something that really struck mein that reading the headlines
over the last few days.
Sunday telegraph's reaction to the newsthat police are gonna be monitoring
social media in an attempt to sortof stave off any anymore protests
and riots outside of asylum hotels.
Like last year, this was absolutelypresented as kind of like,
this is Big Brother, this isAllwell, and this is the stary.
They are spying on it.
And then the other stories I've beenreading recently been particularly about
the failures of the Prevent programand that they didn't intervene earlier
(34:08):
with David Amos and they didn't pickup on all of these signs of extremism
in, in, in either his killer or the,uh, the Southport killer either.
You can't have it both ways.
I mean, if, if Chatter is out there on.
Open source information, which iseffectively what social media is.
You cannot object to the police takinginterest or anyone else taking interest.
If you're putting that stuff outthere, it's gonna get reacted to,
including by law enforcement agencies.
(34:29):
, There's a piece,
in the Telegraph this week, whichis really outraged about, uh.
A pro-Palestinian kind ofperma protest in nine Elms.
It's near the American Embassyand it consists of, uh, some tents
and it consists of a, a kind ofopen kitchen and it's on a bit
of the foot bath near the river.
I've walked past it a few times.
Yeah, I've seen that
when I'm in the embassy.
(34:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, um, it's not, I wouldsay severely in anyone's way.
No, I don't, it's notdisruptive or threatening.
Right.
I don't live directly next to it,but I, I. Yeah, I don't believe there
have been sort of direct threats.
It's not as annoying as
Steve Bray, his bloody accordion.
Well, outside parliament.
Yeah.
But um.
That is, uh, so the subject of a piecein the Telegraph with a lot of really
(35:11):
outraged people saying, well, the policeshould shut this down immediately.
Mm-hmm.
their other state of position has beenmuch more on the other side of the coin.
So it slightly goes back to Helen'spoint about favored groups or,
or just who you want to have themicrophone and anyone turn and.
Free speech tends to be, Ibelieve in the freedom for you to
speak things that I agree with.
Um, and Elon Musk and the whole of Twitteris a perfectly good example of this.
(35:33):
What he wanted to see on Twitterwere, were people who agreed with him.
And that's what you get now.
And, and people who are evento the right of him and now
free to say whatever they like.
If you're going to make a caseof freedom of speech, it, it does
have to include opinions that youdon't like and don't agree with.
I mean, it's, it's, it's all well, really,
Ian, do you have a kind of benchmarkof what free speed absolutism is,
(35:56):
or do you think there are reallyexamples in which you can go too far
in supporting the right but beyondincitement to actual physical violence?
I think my own freedom to say and printwhatever I feel like has always been.
Um, primary,
but I do expect otherpeople to go beyond that.
(36:16):
I think that probably is a rule thateveryone could agree on that what they
want to say count as freedom of speech.
Anyone else is, is hate speech.
Your other rule, which is essentially.
Never tweet, have you considerednot posting on social media?
And has also I think, beenvindicated by history.
Right.
Which is, when you were saying that,Adam, I was thinking if you don't
want the police to read your lads,let's all meet down the, you know,
pick and whistle and have a riot.
(36:38):
Maybe don't put it on Facebook.
Maybe just, well, Ithink the think is that
still, where are we at 20years into social media now?
People haven't worked out what it's for.
People haven't worked out, whetherit is chatting to your mates down
the pub or whether it is as itlegally is actually publishing stuff,
which can be seen by other people.
Yeah.
, If you were organizing somethingin the old days through setting
up a a, a newsletter or somethingand sending out to people and
(37:00):
saying, let's have a ruck down at.
Hmm, it's the mill wallground out outta thin air.
Other football clubs are available.
Then, you know, you would expect thepolice to take an interest in that.
If you're doing that on Facebook,or just on Twitter off your own
bat, then you know it's out there.
It's public.
People are going to takean interest in that.
People are gonna react to that, whetherthey agree with you or very much ly
(37:20):
disagree with you or think it's illegal.
Yeah, I mean there is no, that getsinto a wider question about, which
is a free speech question about howmuch should the social networks be
responsible for the, the riot encouragingslop that they, that they allow and
they have just taken a view that it'sabsolutely nothing to do with them.
They're just platforms in a waywhich you as editor, this magazine
would simply wouldn't be able to do.
Just hold your heads up and go.
Some contributor putsomething in at last minute.
(37:42):
I'm, I can't be held responsible.
Well, that's pretty much
how they did it.
The spectator, isn't it?
We're tacky for many, many years.
Whenever he wrote a racistcolumn, they just go, well,
you know, I'm only the editor.
I can't tell him what to write.
I can't tell him not to write in praise.
It's been your approach, has it?
Uh,
no.
And I do, do agree with Helen, theidea that you just put on one of
your platforms, something that is notonly manifestly untrue, but is likely
(38:02):
to, stoke up a riot straight away.
shortly after you'vejust had some real riots.
I mean, it seems to be reasonable toexpect people to take some care with that.
What we really need to talkabout though is the fact that
Adam is ringing his shame bell.
Ah, yes.
In audibly it's a very high pitchshame bell, so young, only younger
listeners will able to hear it.
It's a whistle.
(38:23):
It's what?
It's, we come to the bit ofthe podcast just like on page
two of a newspaper, corrections
and clarification.
Exactly.
Um, I wish to apologize, uh, ina previous episode of page nine
four, the Private Eye podcast.
Specifically our questionsand answers to listeners.
One, I think it was lastFebruary, wasn't it?
We talked about amongst otherthings, um, super injunctions
(38:43):
and I said very, very clearly.
As far as I know, they are a thing of thepast and I'm pretty certain about this.
Listeners, I was wrong, as you willknow by now, there was one very, very
spectacular and longstanding superinjunction, uh, which was awarded
to the MOD, the Ministry of Defenseback in, uh, August August, 2023.
It was massive headline news overthe last few weeks to summarize it.
Basically it was about the leak ofa list of names, uh, of, uh, Afghan
(39:06):
people who were being considered forresettlement after the disastrous
withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The MOD didn't actually realizethe list had been put out there by
accident, uh, for another 18 months.
So it was August, 2023 when theywent for, uh, not a super injunction.
Simply an injunction that would, uh,cover the kind of security of these people
while they worked out what to do about it.
(39:27):
Because obviously these people were indanger of reprisals, by the Taliban.
Uh, it then went on for months andmonths and years and years after that,
and has finally only been dropped aftera review brought in by the incoming,
labor government, uh, which said it wasnot necessary and not needed anymore.
Uh, in that meantime, it is covered.
This is the extraordinarybit, um, the relocation of 20.
(39:47):
Thousand or more people, which weweren't told about, uh, which obviously
migration into this country being quitea hot political topic for the last few
years, it does seem rather relevant.
Uh, and the, um, as, as the judgenoted in the final judgment, there's
billions of pounds of taxpayers cashbeing spent on this as well with no
oversight from either the public ormore to the point from parliament.
So, uh, yeah, it wasquite a biggie really,
(40:10):
This was an MOD list.
This was a,
it was within the MOD, it was about thepeople who needed, um, resettling from
Afghanistan because of the work theyhad done with British troops out there.
So it's people like translatorsand facilitators and drivers and
all, all, all that kind of thing.
Was there
not a suggestion too that some of themhad put, as their references, names
of serving Army offers potentiallyserving intelligence officers as well?
(40:30):
There were, it turned out in a slightlyseparately election, the names of certain
MI six officers and Special Forcessoldiers also revealed in the league.
and it was a super injunction.
Used for what they were traditionallyused for, which was to cover
up, what had happened and makesure no one took any blame.
Well, it was a really odd one becauseinitially you could see the argument
(40:51):
for keeping this stuff secret.
And in fact, the media organizations thatinitially approached the MOD, uh, which
was actually Louis Goodall at the NewsAgents podcast, and, independent revolved
at quite an early stage as well, 'causethey'd heard, heard about this leak.
they said, look, we understand thatthere are security information.
Journalists generally, this maysurprise listeners, but we, we
don't want to get people killed.
It's really not what we came intothe game for, for the most part.
(41:12):
and they were willing to,to hold back on that stuff.
And it was in fact the judge, uh, a mancalled Mr. Justice Robin Knowles, uh, who
interestingly is not from the media list.
He's from the financial list.
This is a case of when we, youremember this, Ian, from going back
to the days when super injunctionsand injunctions were being cast all
over the place, it tended to be.
The judge who was on duty and wascalled there in his pajamas and
didn't really know what area he wastalking about, and would just say,
(41:34):
well, why don't you have one of these?
Then that's exactly what happened.
In this case.
No one was going for a super injunction.
It was Mr. Justice Knowles who came upwith and said, well, why don't you have
one of these so arguments to be made?
As I say, the journalists were quitehappy to keep the stuff secret,
and there are precedents for this.
Do you remember 2008 Prince Harrywhen he was deployed to Afghanistan?
There was no kind of formal system to keepthat a secret while he was over there.
It was sort of gentleman's agreement,gentleman, gentle women's agreement,
(41:56):
I guess, across the press thatthey would keep that a secret.
And it was only blown by, the DrudgeReport, which is a pretty down
market kind of American websitethat, that, that, that, that blew
the whole thing open in that case.
So it could have worked that way.
We're in a slightly more feral world now,as we've been saying with social media,
but actually the list was leaked partiallyon Facebook by someone in Afghanistan.
And actually because of the feral worldof social media, as far as I can see,
(42:19):
there was no way of imposing the superinjunction of him and the only actual
thing that happened as a result of that.
Uh, was that he got his ownresettlement expedited as a result.
That's a little bit like blackmail, whichis one of the other things that used to
get thrown round in the cases of super.
That's
outrageous.
I'm a, I'm, I'm voting reform.
but as the joke pages had it, normallythese super injunctions were to, cover
(42:40):
incidents where celebrities were,were getting screwed as opposed to the
entire country for billions of pounds.
It does seem slightly more.
Important than what HaroldDonald from Take that was doing
with his winky, doesn't it?
Good Lord.
Not only do I know whatyou are referring to,
but I wish I didn't.
Uh,
(43:01):
In fact, it was actuallydischarged the super injunction
in July, 2024, and then promptlyreinstated by the Court of appeal.
Everyone on the media side of it and therewere a lot of media organizations involved
by that point in the legal action thought.
That's it, we're there.
Uh, and then the MOD appealed it,it went back to the court of Appeal
and there's been subject to variousmore hearings until this point
But it also meant that a number ofcommentators found their heads exploding
(43:23):
'cause um, they had to move from.
Why can't we stand by our Afghanallies into what are we doing
having another 24,000 people flyingin here, um, without any checks?
So, um, it, it, it had, um, it hadfollow up effects as well, right?
And it covered the period of coursein the run up to the general election
as well when, you know, uncheckedmigration was an enormous issue.
(43:44):
So, uh, you know, it was ahell of a political hot potato
that was being covered up.
I find it quite cheering.
I mean, we actually managed to organizeall of that repatriation for people
without anyone finding out I wasa level of British state capacity.
I didn't know we possessed.
Right?
Yeah.
If we could apply that same zealto like building some houses or
something, how wonderful that would be
Okay.
But in many ways, what I'mhearing, a win for Britain,
(44:07):
, Right.
That's it for this episode of page 94.
We'll be back again in afortnight with another one.
My thanks to Ian, Helen, Adam,and of course to John Farley.
Thank you to you for listening.
If you would like more examples ofUntrammeled free speech, which nonetheless
maintains the boundaries of usually tasteand decency while still being very funny.
Then why not buy a copy of Private Eye?
(44:27):
Go to private hyphen.co.uk.
You can get a year's subscriptionto Private Eye for the cost of,
I would say about six coffees.
Um, so that's, that's worth doing
plus unlimited placards to printout and take to your next protest.
I'm taking a, a thri poem along to mynext one, whether it's relevant or not,
you'll be arrested for the Scansion.
(44:48):
Um, so thank you very much again,uh, to all of you for listening.
And to Ollie Peart ofRethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.
Hello, and welcome toanother episode of Page 94.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, andI'm here in the private eye office.
This episode is going to be a slightlyupside down one in the second half.
Uh, we're going to be joinedby Ian, Helen, and Adam.
But in the first half we're goingto have an interview, and the
reason for that is that this is ourSummer Freedom of Speech special.
Uh, we're gonna be talking aboutpolicing, about protest, and
(00:26):
about prescribed organizations.
The reason this is in the news so muchat the moment, uh, was all kickstarted,
by a group called Palestine Action.
Now a prescribed organization,but until recently, uh, simply
a, a direct protest group.
Their direct protests, uh, on behalfof the Palestinian calls culminated
at the start of July when somemembers of the group broke into an
(00:47):
RAF base and sprayed paint into theentrance of two military aircraft,
which the group claimed were helpingto refuel American and Israeli jets.
Just a few days later, plans wereannounced, uh, to ban the group, uh, by
the government, and it is now categorizedas a prescribed organization on roughly
the same level as Islamic State, saywhen the government prescribed Palestine
(01:10):
action, the home office minister DanJarvis said that that prescription.
Quotes would not impinge onpeople's right to protest.
Those who wish to protest or expresssupport for Palestine have always been
able to and can continue to do so.
That has not been strictly true.
Dozens of people have been arrested notonly for holding placards, supporting
Palestine action, but many more.
(01:30):
Uh, for holding placards,which were not about.
The group Palestine action was simplyin support of the Palestinian cause.
And recently one man in West Yorkshirewas arrested for holding a placard,
which although it mentioned thewords Palestine and action, uh, was
not a placard supporting the group.
And we can say that for surebecause it was a joke, uh,
from the last issue of eye.
(01:50):
John Farley, a retired head teacher fromYorkshire, had printed out the joke,
which he thought made a good point.
He put it on a placard andpromptly found himself arrested
by the West Yorkshire police.
He was bundled into a police Van.
He was driven to the nearestpolice station where he was
held for about six hours.
Uh, he eventually got a solicitor andwas interviewed, by counter terror
police before eventually being releasedon bail, uh, pending any charges.
(02:12):
Charges, which werenot eventually brought.
Uh, and it's a good thing that Mr.Farley is still at liberty because
it means he's free to join us now.
John.
Hello?
Hi there.
John, you went on this march, wasit a Palestine action march or was
it simply a pro-Palestine march.
No, it wasn't Palestine action.
It's organized by Leeds Branchof Palestine solidarity campaign.
(02:35):
They've been doing them, almostcontinuously since the situation started.
And I've, I've been on quite a few.
I've not been on all of them, youknow, but I've been on quite a few.
So, uh, you went on this march, youhad a placard with you, we should
say at the start of things thatit was a joke from Private eye.
Can you just tell us whatthe joke was, please?
(02:58):
Yes, I can.
It, it, it said at the top in quotes,Palestine Action explained, and then
underneath it had in sort of on redbackground, unacceptable Palestine
action,, spraying military planeswith paint the other bit in green
it said acceptable Palestine actionshooting Palestinians queuing for
(03:20):
food, and I should add, actuallyunderneath, I put copyright symbol,
private eye, uh, number 1, 6 5 3.
And that was really the thing, thepunchline, if you like, for it.
Because the march was about the denialof food aid to, that was the theme.
It was a silent march andthat was the theme of it.
(03:40):
Can you tell us in your ownwords, what happened on the day?
it was a silent march, which wedon't, which you sometimes do.
So it was very solemn, you know, um,people were carrying boxes to symbolize
the aid that's been denied into Gaza.
So I'm holding this up and I, I passedserious policemen on the, on the way.
And then I was more than, wewere more than halfway round.
(04:02):
And I saw two officers on the sideand they just, they saw me and
made a beeline straight to me.
And I thought, theymust have good eyesight.
'cause you know, I wasn'tthat near them, but they said,
can we have a word with you?
And I said, well, can he come to thepaper and have a word with me, us?
And I said, well.
We can have a word here if you like,and they said, no, we want you.
(04:23):
So then they just grabbed me by thearms, took me to the pavement and
I'm not quite sure how, but some,I ended up sitting on the pavement.
I think I went a bit limp as theydragged me over and, and they
said, it's about the placard.
And I went, oh, I.
I brought the private eye with me.
'Cause I thought possibly somebodymight say something to me, you know?
(04:44):
Um, so I, I said it's in,it's in, uh, my rucksack.
I couldn't show you private eyes from mag.
It's from that.
It's from, and, and at thatpoint I realized that I
had a handcuff on one hand.
And they were saying, you're under arrestunder Section 12, the Terrorism Act.
I thought they might saysomething to me first, but they
(05:06):
just, and I was a bit surprised.
So then they said, you are resisting.
I said, I'm not.
And he said, but your arms are tense.
And I thought to myself,I, I feel pretty tense.
I've just been drug to thepavement by two cops, you know?
Uh, anyway, they put the handcuffs onand they said, will you walk to the Van?
So I said, well, I will, if you takethe handcuffs off, let me show you the
(05:28):
magazine and you can see where it's come.
You know?
And I kept saying, it's acartoon from Private Eye.
It's, and eventually people stood aroundme, they all started, they heard that and
went, it's a cartoon from Private Eye.
It's a cartoon from, soit went on like this?
No, they weren't interested.
And as I did suggest before, Idon't know, but I think they've not.
(05:52):
They weren't readers and theymay not have heard of it.
You know, their loss, their loss.
I was in shock to be honest.
it was really only when I gotin the Van I thought, crikey,
so you would, you would, I presume,driven off from the protest?
Yeah.
yeah, uh, yeah, they, people sortof surrounded a Van and that, but
obviously they, they took me away.
(06:12):
And then lying back in the, uh, VanI was on the floor, I said to them,
they said to, what's your name?
And it was beginning to sink in then.
And I said, well, look,take the handcuffs off.
'cause I thought, I'm in the Van.
I'm not gonna get in twoburly coppers, you know?
Um, and I'll show you the no.
And then, so he found my bus pass andhe said, oh, you are your Alan Farley.
(06:37):
Because before that he said.
Well, if you don't tell meyour name, what can I call you?
And I said, call me sir. Andwhich seemed reasonable enough,
but he didn't like that.
, So by this stage I thought, well,you know, I better not say anything
else now then I got booked in.
I was.
Feeling a bit stroppy by then.
So they said things like, are youvulnerable or do you feel vulnerable?
(06:59):
And I said, yes, I do.
And they looked at me a bit surprised.
They said, well, I'm in apolice station and, you know,
I presume this is your first arrest,
yes.
they give you cards out witha solicitor's number on.
On the demo, which I've had inmy pocket and I've never used,
obviously, and they said it's betternot to use the duty solicitor.
(07:21):
You get them to ring this one.
Could I find this card?
No.
And I accused falsely I apologizedto wish I falsely called,
accused you of throwing it away.
In fact, it was tucked intomy phone case all the time.
I found out upon release, but I, Iluckily I could remember the name
and they said, oh yes, we know them.
We can call them.
And I could just aboutremember my wise phone number.
(07:44):
So I asked them to call herand they never did, to be fair.
but she was also on the march, butelsewhere, so she was one of the last
people to find out that I'd been arrested.
So then they said, do you wantto read the, uh, police and
criminal evidence, uh, guidance?
And I thought, well, I'm, I dunno howlong I'm gonna be in there and they
won't let me take my copy of private eye.
(08:07):
Uh, so I said yes.
So I've read most of WestYorkshire's guidance.
they took my fingerprints.
They took DNA swabs, Then I got a callfrom the solicitor via the intercom,
which was hard to make out, but she said,don't worry, I'll be there fairly soon
and I asked, could she ring my wife?
And she took the number and shedid ring my wife, I had a Cup of
(08:27):
tea, they gave me a Cup of water.
I had a fairly horrible.
heated up meal.
How long were you held all in?
just over six hours.
I think I was arrested just beforetwo and I got out about eight.
Oh, I gotta see a nursewhile I was in as well.
Um, because I'd asked my medica,I'm mass, I'm mildly asthmatic,
(08:48):
and I'd ask my medication.
'cause in a stressful situation it can bea bit worse, you know, which somebody got
and brought down to the police station.
And I got to see a nurse, veryfriendly nurse, a paramedic, NHS.
And one of the things she did was take myblood pressure and I said, oh, I'm going
to see my doctors about that this week.
and she said, well, you can tellthem your blood pressure's fine.
(09:11):
Which it was.
Which considering Yes, exactly.
So I've, I thought that was an un, youknow, I thought, well that's one positive
that's come out of today, you know
Then the solicitor came,we had a brief chat.
She said, look, I advise you.
Just no comment, no questionsbecause you, if we're gonna have
a debate, we'll have it in court.
They asked me all sorts of questions.
(09:31):
I mean, one of the questions, Ican't remember what it was, but
he sort of, I rolled my eyes as hesaid it and he sort of looked a bit
apologetic and said, I know, butwe do have to ask these questions.
I'm sure you understand at.
is this questions about whetheryou were a member of Palestine
action or a member of aprescribed organization,
they said, do you supportPalestine actions?
Obviously, I said, no comment.
(09:52):
Um, or I might have justsaid no to that one.
and then they said, did someoneforce you to carry this placard?
Did you make it?
Did somebody else make it?
And one of them, one of them said,this is the counter-terrorism police.
He said, I see the advert.
And the magazine was verysmall and I thought advert, I
thought, what's going on anyway?
(10:14):
I said, uh, he said, he said,did you blow it up yourself?
And I thought, you're counter-terrorism.
Police don't say things like that to me.
That's a very leading question to ask.
Yeah.
well, but
they.
your placard would'vebeen one inch square, so,
well, exactly, yes.
So through that interview Iback and I thought, are they
(10:35):
taking this, that seriously?
I wonder if they are, you know, thesolicitors felt quite confident.
She said, I think, you know,she said, don't know, but, you
know, got quite a strong case.
okay, so eventually you werereleased without charge.
yes, well, no.
I raised on bail chargesgoing, pending, going.
They said they were gonna send my file tothe CPS.. they hadn't committed an offense
(10:58):
and they, they must have been beginningto think, you know, what's in this?
and my bail conditions said I wasn't togo on any Palestine action demos or mark
protests, and I said to the solicitor,I wasn't on a Palestine action protest.
And I've never been on one.
And in any case, aren't they illegal?
So at this point, John, I probably havean apology to make to you, um, because
(11:21):
it was actually me who wrote that jokefor private eye and I. I did not think
would have a result because the classicresult of writing a joke for the mag
is nothing, nothing happens at all.
Uh, and so it wasn't our intention toget anyone banged up, uh, particularly
not if they haven't done anything wrong.
So I'm very sorry about that.
Well, it's not your fault.
I saw it and I I did think that will makea good placard, not least because it's.
(11:47):
Different from the standardones that are handed out.
You know, the same same old, you know,everybody's heard the same stuff before
and I thought this is a clever, anuanced take, but makes the point really
well, you know, good old private eye.
It'll have been through the lawyers.
What could go wrong?
I thought,
yeah
so did you know aboutPalestine action before?
(12:09):
Did you know that thisgroup had been prescribed?
I'm sure you keep up withthe issue in general.
I'd heard of them and yes, andI was aware of the prescription.
So, you know, and, and I. I knew I didn'twant to do what other people have done
and gone out and saying they support them.
But when I could say, I saw that and Ithought that uses that phrase, but in
(12:30):
a different way to make the point aboutpeople are being shocked, queuing for food
, um, we're gonna be talking a bit later onin the podcast, um, with the, with the IT
team about freedom of speech, heavy handedpolicing, all of this kind of thing.
I mean.
In your opinion, do you think whathappened to you was simply really clumsy
policing, or do you think it kind ofindicates a general problem with freedom
(12:52):
of speech at the moment in the uk?
I'd say a bit of both.
I mean, they were clumsy because theydidn't give any chance to explain.
The solicitor said to me later, theydidn't even give you what words of
advice, I believe is the phrase.
but they chose to arrest me.
somebody showed me avideo that had been taken.
There's people who follow us aroundvideoing us and they post them and
(13:14):
and it showed the Van driving around.
Parking up, they walked out, stood tothe side and then as soon as I came by,
they would come straight out for me.
So I think they'd already seen the,I dunno, I presume they'd seen the
sign at some point and thought,right, we're gonna arrest him.
So yeah, I think it was clumsy,but also they weren't, I think,
(13:36):
right, we need to get off thestreet straight away sort of thing.
I wasn't thinking I'd get arrested.
I thought they might say, I thoughtperhaps, perhaps they'll say something.
Somebody, a friend said tome, oh, you sure about that?
I said, well, it's been in private.
Ah, you know, so I wasn'tcompletely oblivious to it,
but I thought at the worstthey'd say, you can't carry it.
You know, or whatever.
(13:56):
You know?
Now I've just said, allright, you have it, you know?
As it turns out, stuff beingprinted in private eye is not.
I guarantee that you won't besued over it as the magazines
found out to its cost many times
that's true.
very dangerous, very dangerous idea.
Um, so part of this, was shuttingdown the use of those words on any
(14:17):
placards whatsoever, no matter whatthe context was., What happened next?
Did it work?
Has this absolutely been chilledand shut down and the words have
never appeared again on a placard?
quiet the opposite.
Well, on Monday they rang me at 10 30and said No further actions being taken.
I said, would you?
And they said, would you like that?
Emailed her in write.
I said, write to me.
Well, I've had the lettersaying that although it says.
(14:40):
They still reserved a right toinvestigate further, you know,
but no, quite the opposite.
Last Saturday we had another march.
And I reckon there was a double,the number of people there.
Uh, my son came along, friends Ihadn't seen for ages came along.
And then as we were going around,I thought that looks familiar.
And it turned out somebody had madeabout 50 copies of the placard that I
(15:04):
had and were carrying around and, youknow, and I thought, I mean, somebody
had one hanging from his carrier bag.
I thought that was very casual.
And there was one, one person, he had oneand he would, he was walking along and
he left the march and he'd walk up to apoliceman, stand next to them, and at the
end, um, somebody was collecting them inand some people said, oh, can I keep it?
(15:27):
So, so there's, there's probably a fewhanging up in people's houses somewhere.
So, yeah, no, it's had the oppositeeffect and lot, I've had so many messages.
. In fact, an old friend who I haven't seen.
well, since the eighties.
he sent me a mess.
He found me on Twitter or ex and,and sent me a message and said he,
we were at school together and hesaid, I'm having a birthday party on
(15:50):
Saturday, next Saturday in London.
Can you come down?
So I am, so it's workingas friends reunited.
So there you go.
There you go.
If you want to connect with an oldfriend, uh, just pick up your copy of
private eye, find the most inflammatorydrug you can and print it out.
Yeah,
Thank you so much forspeaking to us, John.
(16:11):
that's, that's my pleasure.
so now for the second of the show, I'mstill in the private eye office, but
I'm joined now by Helen Lewis, AdamMcQueen and Ian Hislop, and this is
gonna be our summer free speech special.
Very exciting.
Something to listen to on the beach.
So, um, yes, Palestineaction was prescribed.
Interesting little bonus info for youhere, the same day as, the Maniac's
(16:34):
Murder Cult and the Russia ImperialMovement, which are two neo-Nazi groups.
So, Palestine Action is, classifiedas a terrorist organization, which is.
I think an interesting conflation ofa, a protest group and a terror group.
so the nature and scale of a group'sactivities, I believe have to be taken
into account before you prescribe it.
And most of Palestine actions,actions, uh, had been.
(16:57):
Marches, protests, that kind of thing,rather than breaking into places.
Does
this follow climate groups as well,like extinction rebellion, getting
designations as, uh, as targeted groups?
it certainly follows very heavysentences being dished out to members
of, uh, climate groups, which havetaken direct action that that is true.
But what's also true is that presumablybreaking into a military base and.
(17:19):
damaging planes is also covered byexisting criminal laws, isn't it?
I, I believe it is.
Yes.
And
this was the argument, um, insidegovernment, um, before they, they
rushed to do this and there were voicessaying, Don't do this in a hurry, it
may end up making you look ridiculous.
and before private I had written thisjoke, we had written a number of pieces
(17:40):
saying, if you're going to do this, um,surely it's covered by criminal damage.
There are ways of prosecuting peopleif that's what you want to do,
without making them a terrorist group.
Um, and also without making peoplewho support any sort of action about.
Palestine, um, into supporters.
It was obviously going to conflatethings that, um, would lead to
(18:03):
misunderstandings and in thiscase the arrest of, of poor John.
And it's also crazy to leave thosedecisions at an operational level
at actual demonstrations, isn't it?
Because, I mean, there are, thereare many difficult things that,
that coppers on the beat have to do.
Possibly passing private eyejokes and deciding whether or
not they're offensive or funny.
Shouldn't really be oneof those should, are they?
I mean, it just strikes me asa really, really badly drafted
(18:24):
all, like a lot of these kindof kneejerk things that come in.
Hey, so I'm thinking also youremember the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Yep.
And that came in and suddenlypolice were having to make
decisions on what breed a dog was.
You know, when they're not trained upby the Kennel Club, it take the time
to, uh, to make these things specific.
Yes.
I'm still in shock over the fact thepolice officer who made the arrest
didn't know what private eye was,which is, um, you know, uh, a really
(18:46):
shocking thing in the modern world.
He should be in
prison, is what you're saying.
Well, John,
no.
It's a deep failure.
Mr. Mr. Farley said that he keptsaying, look, can I just get my copy
of private eye out of my rux rucksack?
But if you've just arrested someoneon a potential T charge, and they
keep saying, can I go and getsomething from my bag to show you?
Yeah.
Fair point.
(19:06):
They didn't, uh, they didn'tgo for that for some reason.
So, Ian, is this.
Is this just badly drafted law then havingits inevitable consequence on the streets?
Yes.
if you are told, um, to take some sortof, I hate to say the word action, um, uh,
when demonstrations happen and it's reallyunclear what you are meant to do, then.
(19:27):
Ridiculous things will happen.
and this is both absurd.
And also, I mean, he, hespent six hours in custody.
You know, he was, he was puton the ground and cuffed.
It's not nothing.
Mm. Yeah.
Um, and the freedom speech issueis something that's important
at the moment, and we get itevery which way at private eye.
(19:48):
Nearly all the time.
There's someone who wants to bana joke from the last issue or
a piece from the last issue, orsays, why do you never write about
antisemitism when we've writtenthree pieces about it in that issue?
Or why do you,, accept that?
Um, we need a new blasphemy law withIslamophobia, which we didn't do.
And there are concerns there.
(20:09):
you have to, I think, have whatJohn called nuance here, and
that's in the legislation thatcan't be in the policing of it.
I think it's a particularly difficultone because actually this is a subject
on which Britain's politicians areuntil now have been actually slightly
outta touch with popular opinion.
So the kind of elite popular opinionabout Israel's right to exist and
(20:29):
the, and being supportive and anally to Benjamin Netanyahu actually
in the polling the British publicis a lot more skeptical of Israel.
Its government, its actions inPalestine, the Gaza Strip than, than
our kind of political class has been.
So I think that's aparticularly dangerous time.
For, you know, because we hear allthe time about all politicians are so
outta touch, this is a way in whichpeople really feel that their, their
(20:50):
voices weren't, weren't being heard.
And now more than 250 mps from acrossthe parties have all signed a letter
put together by Sarai champion andcalling, um, for a Palestinian state.
Now to some extent, that'sa symbolic question.
At this point in time, I don't
believe we get to make the call.
Right, exactly.
Since Mandate Palestine, it's not reallyup to us anymore, but nonetheless, it's
(21:10):
a, it's a point about the fact that lotsof mps are constantly hearing from their
constituents and not just people with,uh, large numbers of Muslim constituents,
although you'll note those peopleare really well represented in this.
But across the political spectrum, peopleare feeling real unhappiness from people.
It's not a kind of lefty liberalhand ringing kind of concern.
This one,
and I think there the realization hasdawned that there are protests in Israel.
(21:33):
There are opposition newspapers,um, in Israel written by Israelis,
which have been rather more strident.
than any press in Britain I think therethe last few days and, you know, a
couple of really shocking pictures andvideos have slightly changed the climate.
Yeah, so, uh, Benjamin Ashu has saidthere is quotes no starvation in Gaza,
(21:55):
and there is a lot of kind of truth theismaround about some of the more, um, high
profile photos saying that one of the,the babies who look really malnourished
actually has a kind of muscular disorder.
Nonetheless, you know, there are just.
So many reports from inside that aid hasbeen having difficulties getting through.
It's, you know that the food cuesper your joke are really violent and
dangerous for people to get into.
(22:15):
To the extent that Trump was askedabout it this week in Turnberry,
in his appearance with Kier, andhe said, this is a classic Trump
answer from what I see on tv.
A lot of people look hungry.
That's, that's how hedoes his policy making.
And, and you know, but, but you know,and the fact is that Israel has declared
an effective ceasefire daylight hours.
In order to get aid to get throughis the closest you'll ever get to a
(22:37):
kind of concession that actually thesituation had become intolerable.
you know, one of my friends said they'djust seen the picture of that baby and
gone home and hugged their own baby.
Right.
I just think lots of people, particularlyparents, see photos like that and it
hits them really, really viscerally.
I think you're right as well about theway that it's crossing the usual lines.
It isn't just the usual suspects.
Um, I was really interesting thatone of the first papers to go big on
(22:57):
those photos last week in the sortof live aid type presentation of.
We need to do something about, this wasthe Daily Express, which did a, a full
page, really, really shocking pictureof one, one of those emaciated children.
So, you know, it, it isn't just, asyou say, you know, a le lefty rabble
browsers that are onto this one.
It is really crossing alot of political lines.
Well, like Alan Kirby, the um,Syrian little boy who dry coming
off a boat, you know, and that wasacross the media, including right
(23:18):
wing papers who otherwise are veryconcerned about illegal boat crossings.
I think there is just a thing thatpeople really don't like to see
pictures of children suffering and,you know, you would have to be.
Even more outta touch than DonaldTrump not to recognize that, which
is unfortunately, it turns out whereBenjamin Netanyahu is right now.
Right.
And also the, the Netanyahu line that,Israel has the right to defend itself,
(23:38):
does not extend in most people'simaginations to starving children.
And that becomes an issue.
And when he says, um, there'snothing I can do about this, then.
Decides, yes, there issomething I can do about this.
'cause internationally this isgetting a bit, hot even for him.
Then somehow there are, ways, ofdefending the convoys that come in.
(23:59):
There are ways to pausethe fighting, suddenly.
This, problem is not insoluble.
Um, and that I think is,is a fairly major giveaway.
Mm-hmm.
Questions about free speech always endup coming down to questions about power.
Right.
Who are you allowed to criticize?
Who are you, which our groupsnecessarily treated the same.
And so, you know, this is something thatI think you'd find traditionally left wing
(24:20):
Palestine protesters to say, we are notbeing treated the same at the same time.
You'll get.
There's big, big moves on the right tosay things like, the people who supported
the riots last year, you know, havehave received unduly harsh sentences.
You know that they will say thatyou can't criticize immigration,
you can't criticize small boats.
These are clamped down on, Ithink all of these arguments
end up to some extent becoming.
What Abouty, which goes back to yourpoint, Ian, which is the idea that you
(24:43):
just need to have some sort of broaderprinciples and the police need to be seen
to applying them equally, not based on whois a favored or disfavored group to the
police at that particular point in time.
I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, the, the, the kind of key oneon, on, on that side is the case of
Lucy Connolly, who, uh, was the womanwho tweeted an incredibly offensive,
um, um, and tweet at the time ofthose riots last summer, uh, well
(25:06):
she called for an asylum hostelto be set on fire, didn't she?
Yeah.
She said to set on fire, I don'tcare, burn the bastar for all I care.
She did think better of it, but shehad this slight misfortune that by
that point it had been, um, reposted940 times and viewed 310,000 times,
which is one of those cases of.
Where the line is between social media andjust something you might say to a friend
in a kind of hotheaded moment, isn't it?
(25:27):
Because that, that, thatwent slightly beyond it.
But she was, and this has become a sortof core celebrity in certain circles.
She pleaded guilty to inciting racialhatred, but she was given an, in what
does seem to me like an incrediblyharsh sentence, 31 months, which is
way beyond some of the people who areactually physically involved in some
of the violence out those protests.
Um, but there's an odd linewith that because it's.
Become such a causecelebrity on, on the right.
Now that it's sort of the unfairness ofthe sentence has been kind of looked over
(25:51):
into this, this more sort of, it shouldbe an absolute free for all and anyone
should be allowed to say anything online.
Yes.
The, I mean, the argument has movedfrom, is 31 months excessive to, well,
she should have the right to say that.
The traditional line is that, um,uh, we all believe in freedom of
speech, but that doesn't extend toshouting fire in a crowded theater.
But nowadays, what people are shoutingis, let's set fire to the theater.
(26:15):
Which is slightly different.
And I would say the Connollycase does prove that.
can I ask, I know this varies a lotinternationally, and I read one argument
claiming that had Lucy Connolly writtenthat tweet in America, given that it did
not call for a specific act of violence,for example, she would most likely not
have been arrested, charged, imprisoned.
(26:37):
So is this, I mean, is there adifference between saying, I would
like this particular person to beattacked and saying, oh, Burned
the lot down for all I care.
Well, again, I think this comes back tothat initial point that we made about
these guidelines need to be really,really carefully drafted because, I
mean, I've read stuff by, by very eminentlegal commentators saying Actually,
you know, according to the sentencingguidelines, this was completely,
(26:58):
it went to the court of appeal.
Who, who said that it wasn't manifestlyunjustly, it stands as a sentence.
But in that case, maybe we do needto have a look at the sentencing
guidelines on that thing.
'cause that does seem a crazysituation where inciting violence
gets, gets a harsher sentencethan committing violence itself.
Yeah.
And the Scott in Scotland, theywanted to go even further than that.
They wanted an offensive stirringup hatred that you could be, uh,
(27:19):
guilty or even in, in your own home.
Even in kind of Adam's example of sayingit to your, your own family, right.
Which didn't ever, ever go through.
But like there are, that isdefinitely a force in political life
at the moment, is that people dowant more restrictions on speech.
And look, I can see why, you know,I think lots of people feel very.
Worried about violence and harm.
You know, I know lots of Jewishpeople feel that there's been
a real uptick in antisemitism.
(27:40):
And if you go on some of those Palestinemarches, I, I went on one now, 18
months ago, and the vast majority ofpeople there were completely peaceful
and making a legitimate al statement.
But there were also really grim vilesigns that were slipped in amongst them.
And this again, I think comesback to the how much can the
police be expected to do that?
They always have to make a callwhen there are things that obviously
(28:02):
cross the line about is it worth.
The ruck to go in and sort that out?
Or are we actually gonna, at thatpoint, does it tip into violence?
Right.
They are making.
Fine policing distinctions.
and they were criticized on a number ofthose marches for not arresting people
who had paraglider symbols on theirback on the grounds that, um, well,
we're not quite sure what that means.
And then those people were subsequentlyarrested after public pressure and
(28:25):
then were not given, a custodialsentence, if you remember, on the
grounds that emotions were running high.
we, we should say that Paraglidersbeing the ones that we used by Hamas
in, in the October attacks on Israel.
Yeah.
So it cuts both ways.
This why don't the police act?
usually because they're not quitesure or because as you said earlier,
(28:46):
they're worried about stirring up.
Real trouble, um, in which, uh, arrestingpeople, turns into something else.
I mean, all these points are appreciated,but, uh, the essential principle
is, um, if people are committing anoffense, they should be arrested.
If they're not, they shouldn't.
that's
inherent to the problem, isn't it?
I mean, having covered the feminismwars for more than a decade, the
(29:07):
problem is when you give police theability to make these distinctions,
they tend to err on the side of who isquite easy to arrest and right in front
of me now, rather than like dealingwith mobile phone thefts or whatever.
So there have been some.
Kind of really, you know, likepeople, uh, uh, uh, you know, someone
said at some point the suffragetteribbons were a threatening sign.
You know, that there, there isjust this wildly over expansion
(29:29):
of what constitutes threat.
you know, there are people withinlabor who'd like to bring back
blasphemy laws, for example, right?
As a kind of way of saying religiousoffenses also kind of a harm.
And at the same time, you've got this muchgreater idea that speech can cause harm.
There's just been two, thisis tangentially related.
Two Jewish comedians have justbeen, had their bookings canceled
(29:50):
at the, uh, Edburg Fringe.
And one of the, uh, rationales givenwas the venue saying, our staff
are worried about being unsafe.
Now this used to happen to feministmeetups all the time during the 2010s, and
the problem was, it was essentially sayingwe're gonna have protestors and we can.
Hack that.
, Back in 2020, I was supposed to bedoing an event at the South Bank Women
of the World Festival for DifficultWomen, and on my panel were Amad Weer.
(30:11):
Played netball for England.
Aisha has Eureka, who's now in theLords, and Julie Bindle, the feminist
campaign on lots of things includinggrooming, gangs, and also gender.
And I got a phone call from the venuetwo nights before saying the staff union
has said that because Julie Bindle isgoing to be there, they don't feel safe.
And I thought, she gonnalike, heck you about.
She doesn't like Pan Tony.
That's about the worstthing that's gonna happen.
(30:33):
But it was, and, and they triedto, you know, essentially get
me to cancel her on her behalf.
And I said, well, look, if she walks, Iwalk and I phone the other two panelists
and they said the same and it went ahead.
And guess what?
We didn't even talk about trans stuff,which was obviously what was behind it,
because the book isn't about that, the.
But it was this sense that you couldsuddenly just get anything canceled
just by saying it's a safety issue.
(30:53):
It's a safety issue.
It's a safety issue.
And I think there has to be a certainlevel of robustness that people can be
incredibly offensive up to the point ofinvoking really unpleasant stereotypes.
Nonetheless, it is not thesame as violence and I, and
I think that distinction is,is increasingly getting lost
and I, I think just saying, the staff areeither feeling unsafe or being unsafe.
(31:14):
It would mean very little gets published.
I mean, certainly the Satanic verses,um, but all the controversy after that.
One of the things that, that, broughtup was if people are sufficiently
violent in their reaction to whatthey perceive to be blasphemy,
uh, then nothing gets published.
and again, I don't think that is, uh, aposition that the law should be taking.
(31:36):
I mean, I remember feeling not entirelycomfortable in this very office in 2015,
the week after the Charlie Hebdo massacre,when every single news, uh, news, um,
broadcast seemed to be describing it asthe equivalent of private eye in the uk.
Oh, we're really not actually,but you know, you turn up because
you believe in something and you.
You do the work, and I probably wouldfeel better if I was different about
it, if I was, you know, behind the baron minimum wage in Edinburgh venue.
(31:59):
But again,
but sure.
When I was reading it, I was thinkingabout your Tommy Wild Blood novels and
the fact that so many LGBT campaignersthrough the seventies and eighties,
they went to work in drag shows andin standups when they knew there'd
be a, might be well be a police raid.
Right.
And they'd all be carted off.
Mm-hmm.
Like that was real bravery.
If you believe in.
A certain level of free speech.
You know, you, there are risks that youtake them, and I think if you work in a
(32:20):
venue that is a comedy venue or a standupvenue or a free speech venue, that's
sort of part of the, the vibe, isn't it?
There there are other other bars you couldwork in that are completely apolitical.
Well, two of those acts areapolitical, aren't they?
Well, so the one of the comedian,one of the comedians that had,
had, they essentially done what Iconsider to be slightly tedious.
What about online saying, oh,you're protesting about Palestine,
(32:41):
but what about the hostages?
Now I just find that's a sort ofroute one thing when you just want
to kind of, you know, just makeeverybody just derail what everyone's
currently talking about, mate, andtalk about what you want to talk about.
But it's absolutely legitimatelevel of free speech.
Disagree with his emphasisin that particular conflict.
It was a Jewish cabaret involvingJewish and non-Jewish artists.
And then a show called UltimateJewish Mother, which I'm just
(33:03):
gonna guess was probably aboutlike having a Jewish mother.
I mean, maybe, maybe it was a trenchantcommentary on the Middle East.
But that's the problem is thatthere's just an incredible
heckler veto on, on speech.
And then I think the same thing happenswith these groups, which is saying
even voicing support for someoneis the same as doing it, you know?
, That the speech itself isseen as a kind of harm.
So this is what I mean aboutfavored and disfavored groups.
(33:26):
I, I came into this debate in the 2010sfrom the kind of feminist perspective of
the internet was causing a huge uptickin abuse of women and minorities thinking
something should be done about that.
And actually almost every time I'veseen tightening up of speech laws, it
has ended up affecting whoever has gotthe currently unfashionable opinions.
And I'm just not sureyou can get past that.
(33:47):
Something that really struck mein that reading the headlines
over the last few days.
Sunday telegraph's reaction to the newsthat police are gonna be monitoring
social media in an attempt to sortof stave off any anymore protests
and riots outside of asylum hotels.
Like last year, this was absolutelypresented as kind of like,
this is Big Brother, this isAllwell, and this is the stary.
They are spying on it.
And then the other stories I've beenreading recently been particularly about
the failures of the Prevent programand that they didn't intervene earlier
(34:08):
with David Amos and they didn't pickup on all of these signs of extremism
in, in, in either his killer or the,uh, the Southport killer either.
You can't have it both ways.
I mean, if, if Chatter is out there on.
Open source information, which iseffectively what social media is.
You cannot object to the police takinginterest or anyone else taking interest.
If you're putting that stuff outthere, it's gonna get reacted to,
including by law enforcement agencies.
(34:29):
, There's a piece,
in the Telegraph this week, whichis really outraged about, uh.
A pro-Palestinian kind ofperma protest in nine Elms.
It's near the American Embassyand it consists of, uh, some tents
and it consists of a, a kind ofopen kitchen and it's on a bit
of the foot bath near the river.
I've walked past it a few times.
Yeah, I've seen that
when I'm in the embassy.
(34:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, um, it's not, I wouldsay severely in anyone's way.
No, I don't, it's notdisruptive or threatening.
Right.
I don't live directly next to it,but I, I. Yeah, I don't believe there
have been sort of direct threats.
It's not as annoying as
Steve Bray, his bloody accordion.
Well, outside parliament.
Yeah.
But um.
That is, uh, so the subject of a piecein the Telegraph with a lot of really
(35:11):
outraged people saying, well, the policeshould shut this down immediately.
Mm-hmm.
their other state of position has beenmuch more on the other side of the coin.
So it slightly goes back to Helen'spoint about favored groups or,
or just who you want to have themicrophone and anyone turn and.
Free speech tends to be, Ibelieve in the freedom for you to
speak things that I agree with.
Um, and Elon Musk and the whole of Twitteris a perfectly good example of this.
(35:33):
What he wanted to see on Twitterwere, were people who agreed with him.
And that's what you get now.
And, and people who are evento the right of him and now
free to say whatever they like.
If you're going to make a caseof freedom of speech, it, it does
have to include opinions that youdon't like and don't agree with.
I mean, it's, it's, it's all well, really,
Ian, do you have a kind of benchmarkof what free speed absolutism is,
(35:56):
or do you think there are reallyexamples in which you can go too far
in supporting the right but beyondincitement to actual physical violence?
I think my own freedom to say and printwhatever I feel like has always been.
Um, primary,
but I do expect otherpeople to go beyond that.
(36:16):
I think that probably is a rule thateveryone could agree on that what they
want to say count as freedom of speech.
Anyone else is, is hate speech.
Your other rule, which is essentially.
Never tweet, have you considerednot posting on social media?
And has also I think, beenvindicated by history.
Right.
Which is, when you were saying that,Adam, I was thinking if you don't
want the police to read your lads,let's all meet down the, you know,
pick and whistle and have a riot.
(36:38):
Maybe don't put it on Facebook.
Maybe just, well, Ithink the think is that
still, where are we at 20years into social media now?
People haven't worked out what it's for.
People haven't worked out, whetherit is chatting to your mates down
the pub or whether it is as itlegally is actually publishing stuff,
which can be seen by other people.
Yeah.
, If you were organizing somethingin the old days through setting
up a a, a newsletter or somethingand sending out to people and
(37:00):
saying, let's have a ruck down at.
Hmm, it's the mill wallground out outta thin air.
Other football clubs are available.
Then, you know, you would expect thepolice to take an interest in that.
If you're doing that on Facebook,or just on Twitter off your own
bat, then you know it's out there.
It's public.
People are going to takean interest in that.
People are gonna react to that, whetherthey agree with you or very much ly
(37:20):
disagree with you or think it's illegal.
Yeah, I mean there is no, that getsinto a wider question about, which
is a free speech question about howmuch should the social networks be
responsible for the, the riot encouragingslop that they, that they allow and
they have just taken a view that it'sabsolutely nothing to do with them.
They're just platforms in a waywhich you as editor, this magazine
would simply wouldn't be able to do.
Just hold your heads up and go.
Some contributor putsomething in at last minute.
(37:42):
I'm, I can't be held responsible.
Well, that's pretty much
how they did it.
The spectator, isn't it?
We're tacky for many, many years.
Whenever he wrote a racistcolumn, they just go, well,
you know, I'm only the editor.
I can't tell him what to write.
I can't tell him not to write in praise.
It's been your approach, has it?
Uh,
no.
And I do, do agree with Helen, theidea that you just put on one of
your platforms, something that is notonly manifestly untrue, but is likely
(38:02):
to, stoke up a riot straight away.
shortly after you'vejust had some real riots.
I mean, it seems to be reasonable toexpect people to take some care with that.
What we really need to talkabout though is the fact that
Adam is ringing his shame bell.
Ah, yes.
In audibly it's a very high pitchshame bell, so young, only younger
listeners will able to hear it.
It's a whistle.
(38:23):
It's what?
It's, we come to the bit ofthe podcast just like on page
two of a newspaper, corrections
and clarification.
Exactly.
Um, I wish to apologize, uh, ina previous episode of page nine
four, the Private Eye podcast.
Specifically our questionsand answers to listeners.
One, I think it was lastFebruary, wasn't it?
We talked about amongst otherthings, um, super injunctions
(38:43):
and I said very, very clearly.
As far as I know, they are a thing of thepast and I'm pretty certain about this.
Listeners, I was wrong, as you willknow by now, there was one very, very
spectacular and longstanding superinjunction, uh, which was awarded
to the MOD, the Ministry of Defenseback in, uh, August August, 2023.
It was massive headline news overthe last few weeks to summarize it.
Basically it was about the leak ofa list of names, uh, of, uh, Afghan
(39:06):
people who were being considered forresettlement after the disastrous
withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The MOD didn't actually realizethe list had been put out there by
accident, uh, for another 18 months.
So it was August, 2023 when theywent for, uh, not a super injunction.
Simply an injunction that would, uh,cover the kind of security of these people
while they worked out what to do about it.
(39:27):
Because obviously these people were indanger of reprisals, by the Taliban.
Uh, it then went on for months andmonths and years and years after that,
and has finally only been dropped aftera review brought in by the incoming,
labor government, uh, which said it wasnot necessary and not needed anymore.
Uh, in that meantime, it is covered.
This is the extraordinarybit, um, the relocation of 20.
(39:47):
Thousand or more people, which weweren't told about, uh, which obviously
migration into this country being quitea hot political topic for the last few
years, it does seem rather relevant.
Uh, and the, um, as, as the judgenoted in the final judgment, there's
billions of pounds of taxpayers cashbeing spent on this as well with no
oversight from either the public ormore to the point from parliament.
So, uh, yeah, it wasquite a biggie really,
(40:10):
This was an MOD list.
This was a,
it was within the MOD, it was about thepeople who needed, um, resettling from
Afghanistan because of the work theyhad done with British troops out there.
So it's people like translatorsand facilitators and drivers and
all, all, all that kind of thing.
Was there
not a suggestion too that some of themhad put, as their references, names
of serving Army offers potentiallyserving intelligence officers as well?
(40:30):
There were, it turned out in a slightlyseparately election, the names of certain
MI six officers and Special Forcessoldiers also revealed in the league.
and it was a super injunction.
Used for what they were traditionallyused for, which was to cover
up, what had happened and makesure no one took any blame.
Well, it was a really odd one becauseinitially you could see the argument
(40:51):
for keeping this stuff secret.
And in fact, the media organizations thatinitially approached the MOD, uh, which
was actually Louis Goodall at the NewsAgents podcast, and, independent revolved
at quite an early stage as well, 'causethey'd heard, heard about this leak.
they said, look, we understand thatthere are security information.
Journalists generally, this maysurprise listeners, but we, we
don't want to get people killed.
It's really not what we came intothe game for, for the most part.
(41:12):
and they were willing to,to hold back on that stuff.
And it was in fact the judge, uh, a mancalled Mr. Justice Robin Knowles, uh, who
interestingly is not from the media list.
He's from the financial list.
This is a case of when we, youremember this, Ian, from going back
to the days when super injunctionsand injunctions were being cast all
over the place, it tended to be.
The judge who was on duty and wascalled there in his pajamas and
didn't really know what area he wastalking about, and would just say,
(41:34):
well, why don't you have one of these?
Then that's exactly what happened.
In this case.
No one was going for a super injunction.
It was Mr. Justice Knowles who came upwith and said, well, why don't you have
one of these so arguments to be made?
As I say, the journalists were quitehappy to keep the stuff secret,
and there are precedents for this.
Do you remember 2008 Prince Harrywhen he was deployed to Afghanistan?
There was no kind of formal system to keepthat a secret while he was over there.
It was sort of gentleman's agreement,gentleman, gentle women's agreement,
(41:56):
I guess, across the press thatthey would keep that a secret.
And it was only blown by, the DrudgeReport, which is a pretty down
market kind of American websitethat, that, that, that, that blew
the whole thing open in that case.
So it could have worked that way.
We're in a slightly more feral world now,as we've been saying with social media,
but actually the list was leaked partiallyon Facebook by someone in Afghanistan.
And actually because of the feral worldof social media, as far as I can see,
(42:19):
there was no way of imposing the superinjunction of him and the only actual
thing that happened as a result of that.
Uh, was that he got his ownresettlement expedited as a result.
That's a little bit like blackmail, whichis one of the other things that used to
get thrown round in the cases of super.
That's
outrageous.
I'm a, I'm, I'm voting reform.
but as the joke pages had it, normallythese super injunctions were to, cover
(42:40):
incidents where celebrities were,were getting screwed as opposed to the
entire country for billions of pounds.
It does seem slightly more.
Important than what HaroldDonald from Take that was doing
with his winky, doesn't it?
Good Lord.
Not only do I know whatyou are referring to,
but I wish I didn't.
Uh,
(43:01):
In fact, it was actuallydischarged the super injunction
in July, 2024, and then promptlyreinstated by the Court of appeal.
Everyone on the media side of it and therewere a lot of media organizations involved
by that point in the legal action thought.
That's it, we're there.
Uh, and then the MOD appealed it,it went back to the court of Appeal
and there's been subject to variousmore hearings until this point
But it also meant that a number ofcommentators found their heads exploding
(43:23):
'cause um, they had to move from.
Why can't we stand by our Afghanallies into what are we doing
having another 24,000 people flyingin here, um, without any checks?
So, um, it, it, it had, um, it hadfollow up effects as well, right?
And it covered the period of coursein the run up to the general election
as well when, you know, uncheckedmigration was an enormous issue.
(43:44):
So, uh, you know, it was ahell of a political hot potato
that was being covered up.
I find it quite cheering.
I mean, we actually managed to organizeall of that repatriation for people
without anyone finding out I wasa level of British state capacity.
I didn't know we possessed.
Right?
Yeah.
If we could apply that same zealto like building some houses or
something, how wonderful that would be
Okay.
But in many ways, what I'mhearing, a win for Britain,
(44:07):
, Right.
That's it for this episode of page 94.
We'll be back again in afortnight with another one.
My thanks to Ian, Helen, Adam,and of course to John Farley.
Thank you to you for listening.
If you would like more examples ofUntrammeled free speech, which nonetheless
maintains the boundaries of usually tasteand decency while still being very funny.
Then why not buy a copy of Private Eye?
(44:27):
Go to private hyphen.co.uk.
You can get a year's subscriptionto Private Eye for the cost of,
I would say about six coffees.
Um, so that's, that's worth doing
plus unlimited placards to printout and take to your next protest.
I'm taking a, a thri poem along to mynext one, whether it's relevant or not,
you'll be arrested for the Scansion.
(44:48):
Um, so thank you very much again,uh, to all of you for listening.
And to Ollie Peart ofRethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.
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