Monthly Archives: January 2026

Lets Rethink Free Speech: When Decline Occurs – What Actually Stops it.

Up to now, this series has been a bit uncomfortable.

We’ve looked at how free speech in the UK isn’t ancient or absolute, how it’s conditional, qualified, and increasingly enforced by culture and institutions rather than courts.

We’ve looked at how uncertainty, anxiety, and risk-aversion do a lot of quiet work without anyone ever needing to pass a censorship law.

At this point, a fair question arises:
Isn’t this all a bit… disheartening?
And more importantly:
Has this ever been spotted and stopped?

A Message about humanists.

A Message about humanists.
So the Humanists UK has created this interesting, admittedly aimed at recruitment, video. The voice over is by one of. probably. the best known humanists – Stephen Fry, and it is a fair introduction into what being a humanist means, what humanists Uk does, and possibly will help others, like me, realise they are not alone.

Lets Rethink Free Speech: So what happens when the law is vague?

Here’s the odd thing.

If you look only at the law, you might think free speech in the UK is reasonably well protected. It’s qualified, yes — but courts draw lines, there are principles, and there are clear cases where speech is defended.

But if you look at how people actually behave — what they say, what they don’t say, what organisations allow, and what quietly disappears — something else is going on.

When the rules are unclear, and the consequences are social rather than legal, people don’t wait to find out where the line is.

They stay well back from it.

Lets Rethink Free Speech: What “Subject to” Actually Means.

So a slight change in my normal tone of voice for the bit – cos its important and I also don’t want to lead anyone a stray, so sorry its gonna get a bit dry – but there is a nice picture at the end.

How the Human Rights Act Has Limited (and Protected) Freedom of Speech in the UK

Lets Rethink Free Speech: If not the Magna Carta then Where?

If you’ve stayed with me this far, we can now clear something up.

If free speech in the UK didn’t emerge from Magna Carta — and it didn’t — then it wasn’t “invented” in a single moment at all. It arrived slowly, unevenly, and often by accident, shaped less by grand declarations and more by political conflict, religious struggle, and institutional convenience.

Lets Rethink Free Speech: Why January 9th is Important

Fittingly, January 9th, is the birthday of people who made a career out of using their voices: protest singer Joan Baez, and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, both of whom understood that speech is never just about saying things — it’s about who gets heard, and at what cost.

Which brings us neatly to the question at the heart of this post: what do we in the UK actually mean when we talk about free speech — and how close is that to the reality we live with today?

Lets Rethink Human Rights: So… Is the ECHR Actually Helpful or Not?

By this point we’ve wandered through the history, the numbers, the court cases, and the reality inside the UK.
And honestly, the whole thing has turned out to be a lot less dramatic — and a lot more normal — than the public debate makes it sound.

So the last question is the simplest one:

“Is the ECHR actually doing anything useful for us… or is it just a nuisance?”

Lets see…

Lets Rethink Human Rights: Are Uk Courts Really Swamped with Human Rights Cases?

So after looking at how little actually happens in Strasbourg, the next obvious question is:

“Okay, but what about here? Aren’t our own courts constantly tied up in human rights claims?”

Because if you listen to some politicians, you’d think every other case is someone shouting “Article 8!” and demanding their cat has visitation rights.

Lets Rethink Human Rights: Does the ECHR Actually Boss Britain Around?

Lets Rethink Human Rights: Does the ECHR Actually Boss Britain Around?

So, after Part 1, we’ve got the basics down:
Britain helped build the ECHR, it was quiet for decades, and then the Human Rights Act made it suddenly relevant.

Fine. That’s the history.

But the real question most of us quietly have in our heads is:

“Does this court in Strasbourg actually overrule us? Like… a lot?”

Because if you listen to certain commentators, you’d think half the Government’s time is spent being told off by European judges waving clipboards.

Lets Rethink Human Rights: So… What Is the ECHR Anyway?

Because I Thought I Knew, And Apparently I Didn’t

Right, cards on the table:
When someone mentions “the ECHR”, most of us picture… well, something vaguely European and annoying.
A foreign court. Bureaucrats. Deportation arguments. Cats. All that stuff.

Turns out the real story is a bit different.
So this is just me walking through it, and you can wander with me and decide what you think.