Breaking History: "London Falling: How the Birthplace of Free Speech Became a Censor’s Paradise"

Podcast: Breaking History
Host: The Free Press
Air Date: October 15, 2025

Overview

This episode of Breaking History explores the paradox of contemporary Britain: once renowned as the "birthplace of free speech," the country has become a tightly policed landscape where expression—especially on digital platforms—is increasingly criminalized or suppressed by both the state and culture. Through historical analysis, contemporary case studies, and interviews with key commentators, the show dissects the shift from robust public dissent to what the host calls a modern "Censor’s Paradise."

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Britain’s Transformation: Birthplace and Coffin of Free Speech

• Opening Irony: The episode begins by highlighting the stark irony that “the birthplace of free speech is now a country where speaking your mind can be dangerous.” ([00:05])
• Current Reality:
  • Police arrest people for "offensive" tweets.
  • Police pay visits to homes for online posts—sometimes merely “liking” contentious posts.
  • Data: 30 arrests a day (1,200/year) for offensive online posts ([approx. 01:30]).
  • Cases: Man fined for burning a Quran while man who assaulted him walked free; comedy writer Graham Linehan arrested for tweets ([03:00], [07:00]).

2. Shifting Police Priorities

• Paul Coleman, British Lawyer:
  • Highlights transformation: "The role of the police is not to protect us from violent crime...but... from hate." ([02:10])
  • Policing "targets" and “tick-boxing” regarding speech laws; rise of "non-crime hate incidents.”

3. Legislative Crackdown on Speech

• Recent and Upcoming Laws:
  • The Employment Rights Bill: makes employers liable for third-party harassment, threatening English pub culture ([04:10]).
  • Online Safety Act, Public Order Act, Racial and Religious Hatred Act, and more—incrementally built over Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, and Sunak governments ([54:10]).

4. High-Profile Cases and Cultural Censorship

• Graham Linehan (Comedy Writer):
  • Detained at Heathrow for three tweets ([07:00])
  • “My bail conditions... they started off as, ‘you’re not allowed to go on Twitter’... so that’s immediately what I did: I went on my Substack.” –Graham Linehan ([08:00])
  • Career destroyed: shows canceled, stalked, sued, all for his statements on gender ideology ([09:20]).
• Impact Beyond the State:
  • Neil Ferguson: “The odious thing is the collective... action... by highly educated people... to suppress debate on a kind of Robespierrean principle that the public safety is more important than liberty.” ([12:45])
  • Historical links drawn to Orwell’s Animal Farm and its initial suppression for being offensive.
  • Orwell’s words:

    “At any given moment there is an orthodoxy... It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is not done to say it.” (read at [15:20])

5. History Behind English Free Speech: Dissent and Censorship

• 1689 Glorious Revolution:
  • Charted a partial but not full break from censorship by linking free debate to Parliament ([22:20]).
  • England as safe haven for radicals (Karl Marx, Ho Chi Minh, etc.), but also a destination for censorship survivors.
• Contradictions:
  • Neil Ferguson: “Free speech was a far more American idea than a British one. I sometimes think... there wasn’t really a sense of free speech in England until the 1960s.” ([25:10])
  • Wave of liberalism only after Beatles, Monty Python, Sex Pistols, ending Victorian censorship.

6. On Liberty and the Importance of Dissent

• Richard Carlisle’s 1825 Pamphlets:
  • Early trials over speech on sex, contraception, gender equality.
  • John Stuart Mill—possibly jailed for distributing radical pamphlets—emerges as champion of free speech.
• Mill’s Arguments ([30:50]):
  • Marketplace of Ideas: Speech must “collide” for truth to emerge, not because truth always wins but because dissent is the only way to test orthodoxy ([32:15]).

    “If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.” – John Stuart Mill ([32:30])

  • Social stigma vs. legal penalties: “It is that stigma which is really effective. And so effective is it that the profession of opinions which are under the ban of society is much less common in England than… in many other countries.”

7. Modern Legislative History: 1997–2025

• Human Rights Act 1998:
  • Paul Coleman: “Freedom of speech was considered something permitted... under the common law. By enumerating it as a right... our whole understanding... shifted...” ([55:20])
  • Article 10: so full of restrictions as to make free speech heavily caveated.
• Successive Governments:
  • Both Labour and Conservative parties have systematically increased speech restrictions for both online and offline life ([01:01:00]).

8. Contemporary Examples: Criminalizing Speech

• Lucy Connolly:
  • Housewife sentenced to 31 months in prison for posting an incendiary (later deleted) tweet after a violent incident ([01:07:00]).
  • Connolly, post-release:

    “People jeering that I was sent to prison... Hope that they broke me while I was in there, but I’m here to tell you that they didn’t.” ([01:07:50])

• Lord Charlie Falconer (Blair’s former Justice Secretary) (defends her prosecution):

  “I think it’s perfectly legitimate for people who incite that sort of hatred to be arrested and charged.” ([01:08:50])

• Disparity in Sentencing: Often, “word crimes” are punished more severely than violent or property crimes.

9. Policing, Identity Politics, and Ideological Capture

• Lord Toby Young:
  • Notes police leadership is now oriented to “protecting vulnerable, historically disadvantaged identity groups.”
  • Identity groups “weaponize” hate crime reporting processes as tools for silencing dissent ([01:13:25]).

10. The "Bait and Switch" Tactics of Legislation

• Keir Starmer, PM (2025):
  • Public defense of free speech, then immediately qualifies: “I draw a limit between free speech and the speech of those that want to peddle paedophilia and suicide social media to children... that’s the balance we strike.” ([01:15:40])
  • Paul Coleman:

    “The Online Safety Act in many, many different ways goes so far beyond those intentions, which Keir Starmer well knows. It is how almost all of the speech restrictions are introduced: as this bait and switch...” ([01:17:22])

11. Universities and Professional Bodies as Enforcers

• Kathleen Stock (Philosopher):
  • Forced out of Sussex University for gender-critical views. Not protected by her own faculty union.

  • “Instead of getting involved in arguing with me... they tell their students... or they go onto Twitter and say that I’m a bigot.” ([01:19:45])

12. Pessimism & Hopes for Reform

• Lord Toby Young:
  • Pessimistic: “I feel sometimes like a man falling through a burning building... and I’m plunging down again.” ([01:21:00])
  • Possible hope: Upcoming elections could give a mandate to deregulate speech and reverse some restrictions, but skepticism remains ([01:22:20]).

13. Comparison with U.S. Trends

• Discussion widens to American threats:
  • Conservative and progressive attempts to narrow speech rights with new justifications (“hate speech,” “misinformation,” etc.)
  • Megyn Kelly:

    “Whoa, whoa, sister. We on the right do not crack down on hate speech. We don't believe in that nonsense... Constitution doesn’t allow it.” ([01:25:10])

• Ultimate argument: Free speech protections require humility, not just opposition to governmental action but to all forms of orthodoxy and collective pressure ([01:27:00]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paul Coleman (on policing speech):

  “The role of the police is not to protect us from violent crime...but the role of the police is to protect us from hate.” ([02:10])

• Neil Ferguson (on cultural censorship):

  “The odious thing is the collective...action...by highly educated people...to suppress debate on a kind of Robespierrean principle that the public safety is more important than liberty.” ([12:45])

• John Stuart Mill (read by host):

  “If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.” ([32:30])

• Graham Linehan (on arrest):

  “They're actually going to march me through the airport... it was just one of the funniest and most surreal experiences of my life.” ([08:15])

• Lucy Connolly (on prison):

  “Hope that they broke me while I was in there, but I’m here to tell you that they didn’t.” ([01:07:50])

• Kathleen Stock (academic censorship):

  “Instead of getting involved in arguing with me... they tell their students... or they go onto Twitter and say that I’m a bigot.” ([01:19:45])

• Lord Toby Young (state of free speech):

  “I feel sometimes like a man falling through a burning building... suddenly the floor gives way again and I’m plunging down again.” ([01:21:00])

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Modern Britain’s Speech Policing: Introduction | 00:05 | | Policing for "Hate" and Non-crime Hate Incidents | 01:30 | | Laws and Social Effects: The Employment Rights Bill, pubs, etc. | 04:10 | | Graham Linehan Arrested for Tweets | 07:00 | | Graham Linehan’s Perspective and Bail Conditions | 08:00 | | Neil Ferguson on Soft Censorship and the Role of the Elite | 12:45 | | Orwell on Cultural Orthodoxy | 15:20 | | Historical Origins of English Free Speech | 22:20 | | Neil Ferguson—Free Speech a Modern, Not Ancient Invention | 25:10 | | Mill’s Arguments for Free Speech | 30:50 | | John Stuart Mill Quotes | 32:30 | | Human Rights Act 1998 and Evolution of Speech Law | 55:20 | | Public Space Protection Orders—Silent Prayer Prosecution | 01:02:50 | | Lucy Connolly Case | 01:07:00 | | Lord Charlie Falconer Defending Connolly’s Sentence | 01:08:50 | | Lord Toby Young—Police Ideological Mission | 01:13:25 | | PM Keir Starmer’s "Balance" on Free Speech | 01:15:40 | | Paul Coleman on Legislative Bait-and-Switch | 01:17:22 | | Kathleen Stock and Academic Ostracism | 01:19:45 | | Lord Toby Young on Pessimism and Hope | 01:21:00 | | U.S. Parallels and Megyn Kelly Quote | 01:25:10 | | Final Thesis: Humility, Mill, and Saving Liberal Democracy | 01:27:00 |

Conclusion

Throughout the episode, the host and expert guests draw a clear throughline from centuries of English ambivalence over free speech, through the growth of legal restrictions and cultural taboos, to today’s “censor’s paradise” where both the state and civil society actively suppress unfashionable or offensive views. The lessons from history, and John Stuart Mill in particular, are presented as both a warning and a prescription: only by robustly protecting dissent—even the most unpleasant or unpopular speech—can a democratic society safeguard the path to truth.

For listeners seeking a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the United Kingdom’s speech crisis—rooted in its legal and cultural past—this episode of Breaking History is essential.