Inside The Lords: umbrellas, crowns and attempted cancellations
Read the latest behind-the-scenes updates from parliament, including debates on the Online Safety Bill.
Inside The Lords this week has been a little difficult - I’ve done my back in. So I’ve had to buy an umbrella to help me stand up, and found out that you need special permission to bring in ‘props’ to the chamber. I only needed it to prop me up, not begin a rendition of Singing In The Rain.
The reason why that’s relevant is that I reckon I did most of the damage sitting in the Lords for eight hours straight discussing the Online Safety Bill. Sadly, there were too few free-speech-aligned Lords joining me for the discussion, and hats off to Lord Moylan who was one of the few Conservatives to raise qualms and questions about the Bill’s overreach into safetyism and censorship.
Despite the government removing the controversial ‘legal but harmful’ part of the Bill, it is opposition parties that are keen to sneak it in via amendments. The government has effectively outsourced the issue to tech companies, basically requiring these unaccountable corporations to remove what is legal but harmful material as defined not by UK law but their own terms and conditions. This week I made a few speeches on the issue, which I’ve posted below for you to watch, but we continue to discuss it - and will for some time to come.
Elsewhere in the Lords, we’re about to return to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill and the Immigration Bill. Two very important issues - universities continue to fail when it comes to promoting and ensuring open debate. There are some notable exceptions, my colleagues at Living Freedom have just held a very successful event on Locke and Milton at Oriel College in Oxford. A real must for young people interested in free speech, if you’re aged 18-30 I encourage you to apply to the Living Freedom Summer School. Follow this link.
Outside of the Lords and just down the road, everyone is in Coronation mode - indeed, the Academy of Ideas’ office has a wonderful view of Westminster Abbey. As a republican I did not put my name in the ballot to be chosen to go, but I will be watching from home and I hope you all enjoy the festivities. Indeed, I urge all you sceptics to read Nick Cave’s latest missive on why he will be attending. ‘I’m just drawn to that kind of thing – the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring’. Hear hear, and Nick, if you’re reading this, we’d love to have you at the Battle of Ideas festival…
Before that, I’ll be at the Swindon Literature festival on Friday talking about my book I STILL Find That Offensive! Inevitably, there have been attempts to cancel me because of the usual objections to my political views. So bad back or not, I am determined to go - if you’d like to come along, the details can be found here.
A few speeches from this week. Does the Online Safety Bill really aim (or think it's feasible) to eliminate all online risk for the young? I always worry about a lack of proportionality with these discussions, and hope to avoid any unintended consequences. It's also unhelpful to pile on emotional pressure - some have attempted to stop critical questions of the Bill by saying we need to be sensitive to victims.
Later on, I had a bit of a rant AGAINST children's political rights (and trying to sneak these into the Bill) but also FOR allowing young people some freedom and privacy online - and the need to get the balance between the good and the bad.
Lastly, I worry that managers of Big-Tech companies will be incited to over-remove online content under threat of prison by the government and the opposition. I also worry that they might make big and small platforms criminally liable for - for example - teens accessing harmful material.
