We must have statutory rights that courts must uphold. The right to be who we are is essential.
These rights must include the right to free speech and assembly, albeit with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.
“Trans women are sometimes not women”.
“That offends me”.
??
They certainly don’t mean that OTHER people should have those rights. Only them.
“These rights must include the right to free speech and assembly, albeit with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.”
I find the attempt to criminalise my opinion under “free speech” extremely offensive..
I think I may anonymously send Murphy a copy of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues in the hope that he may just recognise himself as the buffoon expert in them
BF
Plato’s far too subtle for Spud. The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican or the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14 just might hit home – but then he’d probably see himself as the tax collector and the Pharisee as a neo-liberal.
We need free speech, but….
As soon as clowns like Spud qualify free speech you know he hasn’t a clue.
If you have a legally imposed duty not to cause offence you don’t have free speech, isn’t that obvious?
Lord Spudcup offends me, how do I get him prosecuted?
These rights must include the right to free speech and assembly, albeit with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.
The mind of Richard Murphy, perfectly encapsulated.
Beyond goof and devil.
So Spud doesn’t believe in the free speech principle. Nice to have it confirmed.
He obviously sees himself as the arbiter of what is offensive.
Man’s a loon
I find socialism offensive, when are the courts going to ban it then?
Free speech means the right to offend. Justice Bean said so in the Scottow vs CPS case. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Scottow-v-CPS-judgment-161220.pdf
Anything that imposes a duty on someone – you or someone else – is not a right.
“The right to be who we are is essential” “These right must include …albeit with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.”
Contradiction – and how many times is it that people take offence as compared to people causing offence?
On a number of occasions I have found that people, mostly but not exclusively Guardianistas, have taken offence at my being who I am (e.g.a middle-class guy who got into Oxford *on merit* – there was one boy who took offence at my coming top in Maths, several at my not accepting/succumbing to bullying). Incidentally, I am periodically astounded at lefty claims that the blond buffoon only got into Oxford because he was rich and that he’s not intelligent despite his being a King’s scholar at Eton and a Classics scholar at Balliol reckoned to be intellectually la creme de la creme. Guardianistas take offence at Boris’ mere existence and show it by their ridiculous attacks.
He just posted this on his blog:
“Sometimes Lily Allen says it all better than I can (not for those who are sensitive about language)”
Call the police! Spud offended me with some naughty words!
Spud doesn’t do irony at all, eh?
That little ditty’s lyrics is an exact description of his mindset, and ( I think I can safely say) our collective reaction to his Spudness’ brainfarts.
But hey….
Ritchie’s entire existence offends me.
What now?
“a King’s scholar at Eton and a Classics scholar at Balliol reckoned to be intellectually la creme de la creme.”
By who, john77? The Oxbridge self referencing service? The best you can say about Johnson is he’s plausible fake. It’s always worth remembering. It’s been Eton old boys & Oxford graduates who have presided over Britian’s decline from being a world power to a second rate also ran. And continue to do so. If the country need anything, it’s a lot less of them.
I used think that Boris’s academic history meant, if nothing else, that he is intelligent. I no longer believe this.
Of course it’s is also clear his lack of principles and spine drive also his decision making, but it seems to me that he genuinely has zero understanding of the economy.
… with a legally imposed duty not to cause offence.
Now Spud, please give a precise legal definition of the words, or forms of words, which cause offence.
I had a teacher who used to say “Experience is a hard school but fools will learn in no other.” Spud is truly stupid. Hasn’t he remembered the consequences of saying demonstrably untrue things about people? How does this fit in with his “principles”?
Spud is truly stupid.
Don’t discount the possibility that he’s actually evil….
@ Jonathan
+1
@ BiS
I didn’t go to Balliol, nor did I read Lit Hum (or take Classics beyond ‘O’ level) so I’m not self-referencing. And they *were* reckoned to be la creme de la creme: the cleverest schoolboys were (unwisely in my view) steered towards taking classics; 100% of the boys in my year(s) at the schools I attended were pushed into doing Classics or attended Balliol but none got a Balliol scholarship.
There can be no doubt about Boris’ intelligence, just about what he does with it.
@ BiS
Sorry!!
That should reasd “100% of the boys in my year(s) *who were more intelligent than I* were pushed …”
@John 77
Academic achievement is academic achievement. Intelligence is another thing entirely. That can be defined by success. And success defined by individual success or success in the tasks the individual takes on. The best one can say about the public school/Oxford mob is they’re above average personally successful. But then the system’s rigged by the Public school?Oxford mob running it. Nevertheless it produces some remarkably stupid & ignorant academics.
BiS: It’s been Eton old boys & Oxford graduates who have presided over Britian’s decline from being a world power to a second rate also ran.
If you like but which categories of people presided over Britain’s rise to being a world power?
‘If you like but which categories of people presided over Britain’s rise to being a world power?’
Kings and aristocrats maybe? But I must admit I don’t like aristocratic government; no doubt because I’m not one.
So maybe I’ll stick with pirates and plunderers.
“If you like but which categories of people presided over Britain’s rise to being a world power?”
Economically ( & without the economics the UK would have been another Spain. Resource sickness) it was based on industry & trade. The enterprise of people from the bottom of the heap. Militarily, the aristocratic class didn’t manage to do too much damage. British soldiers & seamen were very well trained compared to those of other countries. They punched well above their weight. And that depended on a backbone of individuals at the bottom who knew what they were doing.
@ BiS and TMB
The biggest fall in Britain’s world power was during 1939-45 under two Prime Ministers, neither of whom went to Eton or Oxford. One could also put some blame on Stanley Baldwin (Harrow and Cambridge) and Ramsay MacDonald (Drainie Parish School) for the disastrous 1930s and the lack of preparation for WWII.
When it is trivially easy to check the inaccuracy of your insults, it ill behoves you to comment on the alleged lack of intelligence of others.
John77. Government’s not just who gets to be leader. It’s the whole structure of politicians & the civil service. We’ve now reached the point of Matt Hancock. A superbly educated functional cretin.
The biggest fall in Britain’s world power was during 1939-45 under two Prime Ministers, neither of whom went to Eton or Oxford.
Pretty sure Hitler and Tojo didn’t go either.
Re Johnson’s brain power: any fuckwit who thinks turning UK motorways into a Scalextric lorry track is something to moot as a viable plan is a silly SOB. Regardless of how much Latin BS he can memorise.
And with his track record of deceit who knows how many strings got pulled or favours changed hands to get him his Glittering Prizes.
BiS. I think you’ve put it better than I did.
Perhaps I should have mentioned those staunch citizens who refused to stop burning coal even though Queen Eleanor hated the smell. Or my favourite engineer Newcomen, the first person to build a steam engine that the customers were willing to buy.
A cheap, plentiful and reliable source of energy is a real boost to national wealth. Britain could thus afford the wars which allowed it to dominate the globe. And the expenditure that allowed it maintain its empire. (I’d argue that a very large part of its possessions were not particularly profitable. Though naturally their inhabitants claim that without the evil Brits plundering them, they’d have the lifestyle of gods.)
You’ll have noted that the rise of the ghastly greenies and the drop in domestic energy production has coincided with Britains decline.
“The enterprise of people from the bottom of the heap.”
The entrepreneurs of the industrial revolution (1750 onwards) were not generally from the bottom of the heap. They were lower middle and even upper class – self-employed artisans, or younger sons of the gentry who had lost out because of primogeniture. Moreover, the British coal and railway industries would never have got started without aristocratic and later middle class investment.
@ PJF
Hitler and Tojo reduced their countries’ world power by even more than the UK’s was reduced under Chamberlain and Churchill.
@ BiS
You’re changing your definition as soon as you’re shown to be utterly wrong. Well, it won’t wash – hardly anyone from Eton joins the Civil Service.
[I don’t like Eton and I disliked a significant minority of the Etonians that I have met, so I am typing in the interests of the truth not of Eton].
Your claim that success is proof of intelligence is nonsense (vide: the lack of intelligence of the highly successful Rooney & Vardy wives), and rich old Etonians actually achieve more success than they would if success depended on intelligence. There is no such thing as a Public School-Oxford mob: when I was an undergraduate the majority of Oxford undergraduates came from Grammar schools – things changed after Tony Crosland and Wilson decided to destroy the Grammar schools.
Hitler and Tojo reduced their countries’ world power by even more . . .
If only they’d read their Andronicus.
@John 77
There was no insistence in my comment that the guilty parties had to attend either or that both had to join the civil service. You over presume. And if Oxford (or for that matter the Cambridgeshire nest of vipers) are so bloody wonderful why don’t they do something about some of the raving nutters who use their presence at the universities to validate their ravings. It doesn’t say much for the hard science part of the faculties, does it? You are judged by the company you keep.