Sunday e-mail 14th April: Stirring up hatred

The law, free speech, and the law on free speech. What to expect this week.

Is that great British institution, The Spectator, becoming a magazine about censorship?

I ask because a recent issue contained no fewer than three articles on the topic. Now, I’m not going to address the rights and wrongs of banning TikTok, but you’d be right to call me remiss if I failed to mention the cover story: ‘War on Words: Is Scotland ready for its new hate crime law?’ You won’t be surprised to learn that the answer is very much no.

Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into effect on April Fool’s Day. Some might use the word ‘appropriate’. Scotland already had an offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ on racial grounds. Now it has added at least six other ‘protected characteristics’. And you may be surprised just how protected these characteristics are. The new law even covers comments you might make in your own home. Imagine telling an off-colour joke to your spouse. Without your knowing, your child overhears and nips straight down to the local ‘reporting centre’ to grass you up. Most of these ‘reporting centres’ are located on university campuses but your young child would actually have a range of options, including a North Berwick mushroom farm and a sex shop in Glasgow. I wish I was making this up.

Police Scotland have confirmed that they will investigate every incident that comes to their attention. This at a point in history when they have also confirmed that they won’t bother to investigate ‘minor crimes’. If you happen to want to fling a brick through a neighbour’s window, or half-inch their shrubbery, Police Scotland apparently give you carte blanche. They will, however, be hot on your trail if you happen to say anything at all that someone else claims to find ‘offensive’. (A reported 3600 complaints were made in the first 48 hours after the law was passed.)

a court jester writing a new law

Douglas Murray’s column in the same issue of The Spectator has the headline, ‘Why it’s easier to police non-crimes’. In the UK, 90% of reported crimes go unsolved. That translates into 6000 per day, or millions of thefts and tens of thousands of sexual offences per year. While the actual criminals are getting away with it, more than 3000 regular citizens are detained and questioned annually about something they wrote on social media. That even includes one man who wondered why so many Palestinian flags were flying in his area. ‘If you can’t control the mobs and you can’t control the criminals, why not try to control everybody else?’ Murray asks. A visitor to the UK would be forgiven for thinking that everything’s illegal except crime.

You might ask whether Scotland’s new law is terribly forward-thinking, bearing in mind that the country is internationally renowned for nothing less than the Edinburgh Festival. One of the biggest arts festivals in the world brings untold money into the country’s capital and gives comedic talent a unique opportunity to develop. You may remember how, in 2022, the comedian Jerry Sadowitz had his show cancelled when someone complained. The venue’s director made this self-contradictory statement: ‘The Pleasance is a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians […] This type of material has no place on the festival and the Pleasance will not be presenting his second and final show’. Sadowitz’ show was called Not for Anyone. Indeed it wasn’t. His fans got virtually no chance to hear any of it. Here is The Guardian on the case.

All that came before the new law got passed. You have to wonder how many comedians – who’ve already noticed that audiences are shrinking even as short-term property-rentals are rising – will bother to come back. Comedy is vitally important – and not just for the exercise we get while laughing. It has special – unique – truth-revealing properties that no other art form possesses. And (not coincidentally) that’s the topic of this week’s Crime & Psychology newsletter. I called it ‘Common Sense Dancing’.

Come and join the cool kids this Wednesday! Before then, remember, those blue buttons have been baaaad! Bang them back into line by biffing them. It hurts you more than it hurts them. It’s for their own good.

This week’s bullet list? I’m glad you asked. In keeping with our theme, let me present five aperçus about crime and sin to share with your nearest and dearest:

‘Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches.’ (Jim Carrey)

‘He had the morals of a Baptist Sunday School minister in Paris for the first time.’ (HL Mencken)

‘He who opens a school door closes a prison.’ (Victor Hugo)

‘Hell is full of musical amateurs.’ (George Bernard Shaw)

‘Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies.’ (EB White)

Till next time, Crime & Psychology fans!