I’m a huge admirer of Matt Goodwin, a British politics professor, who’ll be our Guest of Honour (albeit not giving a speech) at the Budapest conference. His regular pieces on politics (mainly in Britain, sometimes beyond) have no equal, in my view.
A subscription to Matt’s Substack currently costs a very reasonable £5.00pcm, and I recently gifted a subscription to a close lady friend (yes, I do have some lady friends!). The cost is increasing to £7.50pcm (for new subscribers only) after the end of this month, so grab a subscription at the current cost while you can. You won’t regret it, I’m sure.
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Month: December 2023
Lady Ballers: Conservative comedy that mocks transgender athletes sparks outrage among leftists and LGBTQ activists – but fans say it’s an answer to Hollywood’s ‘woke garbage’
Enjoy. The official trailer (2:54) is here.
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Video / audio #329 from our archives: Elizabeth Hobson’s message on the 75th anniversary of D-Day
We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 2:29).
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If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’. Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here. If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.
Free Speech Union – weekly newsletter
Dear Mike Buchanan,
Welcome to the FSU’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join and help turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons at the bottom of this email (although not if you’re reading this on a desktop). If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.
Higher education watchdog announces free of charge free speech complaints system
With the new duties outlined in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act set to come into effect from 1st August 2024, the independent regulator of higher education in England has this week set out plans for a proposed free-to-use complaints scheme for students, staff and visiting speakers who feel their speech rights have been breached (Guardian, Telegraph, Times Higher).
The complaints system, which will be overseen by the Office for Student’s (OfS) new Director for Free Speech and Academic Freedom, Prof Arif Ahmed, is one of two new enforcement mechanisms created by the legislation, and will allow aggrieved parties to make a complaint to the regulator if they feel a higher education provider (HEP) or students’ union has failed to secure freedom of speech for them.
This week, Arif Ahmed, former Advisory Council member of the FSU and now the OfS’s ‘free speech tsar’, gave more details about the free speech complaints procedure. Speaking to journalists, Arif confirmed that academics, students and visiting speakers will from next year be able to bring cases to the OfS without having to pay.
Arif also said that where complaints are found to be justified, universities could face fines or other sanctions and that the outcome of complaints – whether they are found to be justified or not – will be published alongside the OfS’s reasoning on why it reached a particular decision. Fines could be in the millions of pounds.
This vital piece of legislation is something the FSU has been campaigning for over the past three years.
We lobbied for the Bill when the Government was weighing up whether it was needed, advised the Government on what to include in it, defended it from critics in both Houses of Parliament, helped to amend it and, finally, mobilised our allies in Parliament to get it over the line.
It’s therefore all the more heartening to see how some of the arguments we made during the legislative process are now filtering down into the OfS’s on-the-ground proposals regarding what it describes as “free speech claims”.
Last year, when the House of Lords rejected Clause Four, which created the statutory tort mechanism and effectively gave the legislation’s free speech duties teeth, we swung into action, contacting all the MPs we knew, writing to the Education Secretary and her ministers, and urging academics who support the tort to write to them too (Telegraph).
As a result, Claire Coutinho, the then Under Secretary of State for Education and the minister responsible for the Bill, ultimately restored the tort.
But we weren’t content to leave things there, and managed to convince the government to amend Clause Four such that in instances where an academic or student sues an HEP or students’ union on the basis that a breach of their speech rights has led them to suffer ‘loss’, that term should be understood to encompass not just pecuniary, but other subtler forms of loss (e.g. humiliation, loss of reputation – or even, as in the case of City University v Laura Favaro, restriction of access to research data with all the attendant detriment to career thus generated).
The rationale for this amendment to the statutory tort was of course that campus cancel culture constitutes an insidious phenomenon, its thin coils of narcissistic, middle-class affront well capable of creeping up from the academy’s intellectual basement, and demurely asphyxiating the career of a dissenting academic without ever having recourse to the payroll department.
You can read and respond to the OfS’s consultation document by clicking here. Although the OfS is particularly interested in hearing from students, staff, students’ unions representatives and leaders of HEPs, it does also make clear that it welcomes responses “from anyone with an interest in freedom of speech in English higher education”.
The FSU is hiring!
The FSU is expanding, and we’re currently looking to hire for two roles.
The case officer role is to support the case management director, director of case operations, and wider case team and legal tam in helping members who are being punished or facing censure of some kind for the expression of their lawful views. You can find out more about this post here.
The operations manager (maternity leave) role will assist the Chief Operating Officer in ensuring the smooth running of the organisation, acting as administrator for the organisation’s online systems and planning staff events. More details on this post are available here.
Applications for both roles close on 4th January. Applications should send a CV an introductory letter to jobs@freespeechunion.org with the job title as the subject header.
The latest episode of the FSU’s weekly podcast is out now
Talking points this week include the curious case of the university leaders normally so happy to call out ‘microaggressions’, ‘unconscious bias’ and the psychological ‘trauma’ allegedly perpetrated by words emanating from the ‘wrong side of history’, now refusing to condemn antisemitic incidents on campus.
Hosts Tom and Ben also discuss the recent spate of ‘woke’ books bought for huge advances by priggish young editors that are (surprise, surprise) flopping commercially, and reflect on Denmark’s news blasphemy law, which prohibits the “improper treatment of objects with significant religious value” – a phrase which is generating some comically absurd debates in the country’s Parliament, as baffled politicians grapple manfully with the Wittgensteinian question of what “improper treatment” looks like in the context of Danish society.
And so, in what must constitute one of the oddest marketing hooks we’ve ever attempted: “Download the episode here to find out whether it’s now illegal in Denmark to wrap religious scripture in bacon… or a rainbow flag!”
FSU Comedy Benefit on 20th December
There’s just under one week to go until our spectacular, annual Comedy Benefit on Wednesday 20th December, and tickets are selling fast. Our MC for the evening is FSU favourite Dominic Frisby, and he will be joined on stage by a fantastic line-up: Francis Foster, Daniel O’Reilly, Tania Edwards and the recipient of this year’s British Comedian of the Year Award, Alistair Williams. Come and let your hair down with the FSU staff as we celebrate another successful year defending free speech. So, round up your friends and family and get your tickets here. You will also be able to purchase the perfect Christmas gifts – our brand-new tote bags, featuring inspiring free speech quotes.
The FSU’s Annual Christmas Review – join us on Zoom
If you can’t make it to London for the Comedy Benefit, do join us on Zoom at 6.30pm on Thursday 21st December for our annual Christmas Review, when we meet to vote on 2023’s free speech heroes and zeroes and discuss the free speech year’s highs and lows. FSU staff will introduce their nominees, members can add their own, and then we’ll take a vote. Register here to get the link.
Forthcoming FSU events in Belfast and Manchester – tickets now available
We will be kicking off 2024 with our first visit to Belfast on Friday 26th January. We have invited an incredible panel of speakers – Toby Young, Andrew Doyle, Stella O’Malley, David Quinn, Ella Whelan and Jeffrey Dudgeon – to discuss ‘The State of Free Speech in Northern Ireland’ at the beautiful Titanic Hotel. Tickets are open to all, so do spread the word and book here now to avoid disappointment.
From Belfast we’ll be hotfooting it to Manchester: on Saturday 3rd February we’ll be at the Anthony Burgess Foundation for a night of discussion with live music thrown in too. Toby Young will be joined in conversation with Sean Corby and Denise Fahmy, two courageous FSU members who we have helped through legal battles to defend the importance of viewpoint diversity in the workplace. Sean is a professional musician, and as well as explaining why it mattered so much to him to take a principled stand, he will be playing from his extensive jazz repertoire, with fellow musician Jonathan Enright. Tickets are on sale now and are available here.
Alumni for Free Speech – show your support
Our friends at campaign group Alumni for Free Speech are raising funds to pay for their part-time operating officer and a new part-time case officer. If you are able to lend them a hand (many people giving a bit makes a huge difference) here is where to go. They are doing great work.
Kind regards,
Freddie Attenborough
Communications Officer
Female assistant headteacher asked boy ‘are you a virgin’ while pretending to be a 17-year-old girl after setting up a fake social media account
Our thanks to Gerry for this. The first question one might ask is, why is the woman (who predictably played the mental health card, often used by women, seldom by men) not named in the article? Gerry writes:
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Feminism has unwittingly removed the blinkers that blinded us to the behaviour of women. Now we have come to expect that even their most egregious conduct will be excused by blaming men.The start of the piece:
A female assistant headteacher asked a boy ‘are you a virgin?’ while pretending to be a 17-year-old girl after setting up a fake social media account. The woman, who also sent sexual photos and accessed married dating site Illicit Encounters at work, sent the message while ‘under duress’ from a male teacher she was having an affair with, an employment tribunal heard. She was in a ‘coercive and controlling’ relationship with the colleague and feared something would happen to her children if she didn’t, the hearing was told. When he later reported her to bosses, the teacher of 20 years – referred to only as XX – was suspended before being sacked for for gross misconduct. The assistant headteacher – who allegedly suffers from recurrent depressive disorder – sued the school for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. However, she has now had her claims thrown out by an employment judge who said her sacking was ‘proportionate’.Another extract:
On August 19, 2018, XX [J4MB: the woman] reported PP [J4MB: her colleague] to the police, after he made threats to kill himself and he received a caution for harassment. He took his own life on the 21st.In an email to me, Tom commented:
He’s dead so can’t speak or defend his honour. Convenient.
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PC Nadia Thurley, 29, who claimed her ex-boyfriend had assaulted her 14 times, is sacked when detectives realise he doesn’t exist
Our thanks to Jim for this in the Mail. The paper isn’t accepting comments on the article – why not? It certainly would if a male PC had invented a female abuser. Jim writes:
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You couldn’t make this sh*t up…and a PC to boot. Diversity hiring in overdrive at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary. The big question is “why?” given there are no money, children or mental health issues involved. Is being a victim of domestic abuse now a must-have fashion accessory for women, even if it means having an imaginary abusive boyfriend?Thurley is due to be sentenced on 18 January after being found guilty of perverting the course of justice. We expect a suspended sentence, because women are very rarely held properly accountable by the British criminal justice system, as we’ve reported in so many cases about female criminals since 2013.
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Blackpool nurse Catherine Hudson, 54, found guilty of sedating patients to ‘keep them quiet’
A piece in The Guardian. The start:
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A nurse is facing jail after being found guilty of mistreating patients on a hospital stroke unit by giving them sedatives to “keep them quiet and compliant” for an “easy life”.
Catherine Hudson, 54, drugged two patients during shifts at Blackpool Victoria hospital in April 2017 and November 2018. Jurors at Preston crown court also convicted her of conspiring with a junior colleague, Charlotte Wilmot, 48, to administer a sedative to a third patient.
Prosecutors said a “culture of abuse” was revealed on the unit when police examined WhatsApp phone messages between the co-defendants and other members of staff.
The court heard how Hudson wrote in a text that she had sedated a patient “within an inch of her life”, adding: “Bet she’s flat for a week, ha ha.”
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Outrage as transgender athlete Jamie Gumbrell, 23, becomes first biological male to become world champion in a women’s sport (croquet!!!)
Our thanks to Alan for this gem. We’re hoping for the same to happen in tennis, with the men’s 500th seed identifying as a woman and beating even the top female players 6-0, 6-0 every time. Matches should be over in 45 minutes and in some tournaments e.g. Wimbledon, the prize money for the women’s game is (scandalously) the same as for the men’s game. Can’t wait.
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Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc and Head of Human Remains Danielle Harmer HATE men in general, and white men in particular
Our thanks to Jeff for this. The end of the short piece:
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It hardly needs pointing out to followers of this blog, but the “chief people officer” – the Head of Human Remains – is a woman, Danielle Harmer. An extract from her profile:Blanc said that Aviva had acted to sack male employees.
She told MPs: ‘The women in the firm have to know that there is a process for speaking up; that that process will be acted on; that everything will be investigated; and the person who did the bad leaves, not the women.’
‘We have had experiences like that at Aviva, where the woman has stayed and man has gone.’
She said senior white male recruits have to get a final sign-off from her and the chief people officer.
A key part of her role is creating an inclusive cultureIn plain English:
A key part of her role is discriminating against men in general, and white men in particular, with regards to recruitment and promotion
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Audio / video #328 from our archives: Mike Buchanan’s talk at Cambridge university, “Equal Rights for Men and Women” (2019)
We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 41:05).
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If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’. Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here. If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.
Justice for Men & Boys 