Sorry but I think I agree with the IPC. I am getting seriously alarmed at the way that the boundaries of free speech are being progressively drawn in, in the “real world”, while anything goes on the web. There is a genuine debate to be had here and just screaming at people who say things you don’t like and demanding that they are banned is not the genuine debate we need.

Tony Greaves

I don’t think it’s news that the PCC exists to rubber-stamp the editorial policies of the newspapers it represents.

On the other hand, I’m not sure what rule this article is supposed to have broken. It is accurate in what few facts it contains, it is clearly an opinion piece, it doesn’t qualify as a privacy violation nor as harassment, and it doesn’t involve any inappropriate information gathering. While it’s obvious what sort of attitude it’s playing up to, it skirts the edges of the discrimination rule without really crossing the line anywhere (I’m sure the article went through several revisions to arrange this). There doesn’t appear to be legitimate grounds for complaint against the code of practice. However unpleasant it may be, this one appears to fall under the heading of “justifiably free speech”.

There is no rule against homophobia, because it’s an opinion legitimately held by some citizens, and we don’t want to go down that road. There’s only a rule against direct comments with no basis in fact, and irrelevant mentions. I don’t think the rules can be much tighter and still remain fair.

We don’t have a rule that articles should have journalistic merit (rather than, say, being reactionary garbage), because we don’t want to have a single opinion about what that might mean. You’re expected to complain to the newspaper directly (and avoid buying their product) if you don’t like their position on this.

Quite why anybody reads the Daily Mail is beyond me. I don’t recall any occasion when they printed something with journalistic merit. This kind of nonsense is in no way inconsistent with their regular output. These are the people who have been caught campaigning on both sides of an issue, so I don’t think anybody could accuse them of integrity.

If the article had been about the death of a black man married to a white woman, had made the same spurious allegations, and had drawn comparisons to a recent suicide to criticise interracial marriages, I very much doubt it would have been printed.

I think that’s probably correct, but it’s still an editorial decision.

Had Moir’s comments been made in the average workplace to a colleague who had complained, would she have been let off the hook?

Unfair; we allow the press more freedom than most workplaces allow their employees. Distasteful or unpopular opinions are allowed to be expressed in the press (where they don’t violate the code of practice), but not in the average workplace, since they are a distraction from useful work.

Edward,

What was objectionable in the article was the entirely false suggestion that Stephen Gately’s being gay contributed to his death.

Tony Greaves,

I’m sorry but you are talking absolute nonsense. The law applies to what’s on the web as it does in “the real world”. But if you think the press is the real world perhaps you have spent a bit too long in the Westminster Village?

As usual, some people are getting confused about the distinction between “This is objectionable, irrational bile” and “This should be banned”. The PCC doesn’t exist to prevent people from spouting objectionable, irrational bile, nor should it.

I looked at the Daily Mail article, then followed a link from it to another article where I read “But last night a spokesman for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young said that anything which could affect the rhythm of the heart could have caused cardiac arrest. He said: ‘If you have an undiagnosed heart condition and you do anything that either speeds up or slows down the heart then you could trigger cardiac arrest – whether that be drugs, alcohol or exercise.’”.

So, Jan Moir’s article is suggesting that a lifestyle which involves bringing someone you’ve just met home for sex, and using a fair amount of cannabis might be a risk factor, particularly in someone with a family history of heart disease.

Well, the issue here is not whether Ms Moir’s thoughts on this are an unusual angle, but whether they are so unfair and unacceptable that they should be banned.

I do not think they should be banned, and I think anyone who calls themselves a “liberal” should be ashamed to want them banned, either formally, or informally through this campaign of abuse aimed at Ms Moir.

I have seen plenty of people on this very site and on sites listed as “Lib Dem blogs” use far stronger language to make insinuations and attacks on lifestyles and attitudes with which they disagree. There is someone, for example who calls himself or herself “Fluffy Elephant”, for example, who runs a regular line of personal abuse aimed at anyone who has some sort of religious practice. Are Mr Elephant’s views expressed unpleasantly, extreme and one-sided? Yes. Should they be banned, or should Mr Elephant be howled down for expressing himself in this way? No.

Malcolm

No. The manner in which Ms Moir’s article was attacked and the comments made about it seemed to me to go beyond this. The intention seemed to me to make sure that if anyone wrote stuff like this again, their reputation would be so damaged by the abuse that was thrown at them that their career chances would be seriously damaged.

I had actually not read the article until I looked at it through the link on this thread. I had, from the protests made about it, assumed that it must have had a far worse abusive tone than I found it had when I read it. I imagined that perhaps it might have been something like Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of blood” speech, where whatever point he was making about problems caused by immigration gets drowned as he launches into ever more and more fanciful imagery, and direct accusations of non-white people menacing white people, until it becomes a torrent of abuse.

But it’s actually something where had I come to it blind I would have thought “Hmm, bit unfair, can sort of see where she’s coming from, but she shouldn’t have put it that way, especially when the poor bloke’s lying in his coffin waiting for his funeral” and left it at that.

It seems to me we are reaching a point where there are some topics that simply cannot be talked about, except to say “me too” to the liberal consensus and “evil prejudiced bastard” to anyone who doesn’t express 100% agreement with the liberal consensus.

I am finding liberal circles – I mean the whole of LibDem bloggery – to be increasingly oppressive to be in because of this. Now, I do have a problem in that I have a natural tendency when anyone puts forward a case to seek the arguments against. I also hate establishments and establishment thinking, so whenever I am in a situation where there seems to be some sort of establishment that insists there is only one true way, I rebel and go the other way. So that’s why I find what I most want to post in these circles is stuff which is critical of the cosy consensus. It may give a misleading impression, because I’m not much interested in writing “me too” stuff which agrees with it, even when there’s a lot I do agree with.

However, I am finding there’s a lot of arguments I fear to make because I fear the mob here.

I made some comments on anti-homophobic bullying on this site yesterday. It probably doesn’t require much insight to see those comments were based on my personal experience. Yet I found it enormously difficult to make those comments not because of that, but because as they were not 100% in line with the liberal consensus on this issue, I feared I might get attacked for making them as Jan Moir was attacked for making her comments. I still couldn’t say all I had wanted to say – and I feel very deeply about this – because of my fear of the mob here.

Malcolm

But people making you a bit unhappy is not an infringement of your rights; and your argument seems to be heading in the direction of saying that you have a right not to be upset, which should trump other people’s right to speak their minds.

QED.

You have now put the case in favour of the PCC’s ruling.

As for “fearing the mob”, of course I do not mean anything physical. However, suppose I were to write something here that someone judged to be “homophobic” and launched some big protest against me on those grounds? I might feel my reputation to be so damaged that I would not want to post here again, fearing anything I wrote would be run down by “he’s just a prejudiced bigot, don’t bother with what he writes”. I might fear also that should I wish to seek office in the Liberal Democrats in soem way, I would be damaged by it.

The point is, this does act as an inhibition to writing something intended to make people think by being a little critical of some orthodoxy. I would fear it would get taken in the wrong way, that what I had intended to say would get drowned.

My feeling is that this was something like this was intended with the co-ordinated attacks on Jan Moir. It was not meant to be just a disagreement with views that might upset some people, it was meant to establish an orthodoxy that commentators would be sacred to challenge.

Matthew

You have now put the case in favour of the PCC’s ruling.

You imply that I hadn’t put that case already. Perhaps you missed my original post on this thread:

As usual, some people are getting confused about the distinction between “This is objectionable, irrational bile” and “This should be banned”. The PCC doesn’t exist to prevent people from spouting objectionable, irrational bile, nor should it.

I’m not part of some anti-PCC-and-Jan-Moir mob that you’re single-handedly fighting off. I’m trying to apply a consistent line, which includes defending the right of those who find Moir’s comments obnoxious to say so, loudly. That’s as important as Moir’s right to make her obnoxious remarks in the first place.

It is generally recognised that free speech can be restricted in a democratic society- for example: defamation, misrepresentation, intellectual property rights, inciting criminal offences, conspiring to commit criminal offences and the encouragement of or racial hatred.

Having an election expenses limit is recognised by the courts in some countries a limit on free speech. The points is it is reasonable and justifible.

I may have been unfair to Lord Greaves but my direct experience of Tony is him coming to English Council a few years ago and asking for a certain document to be thrown out because “it was not what the Leadership wanted” which was somewhat at odds with the inspiring figure I had been led to expect.