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Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, said: “Expressing orthodox Christian beliefs should not be grounds for dismissal from a purportedly Christian organisation.”
Louisa Clarence-Smith, The Telegraph, 18th March 2023.
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Dr Byrn Harris, legal counsel for the Free Speech Union, said: “The Free Speech Union deals with a lot of curious decisions regarding free speech – however even we are bemused by the decision to treat the author of Noddy as dangerous and subversive samizdat.”
“Public libraries obviously cannot stock everything, but by law they must provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ service.”
“Deliberately holding back certain works and making them less accessible might fall short of that standard, especially if the reasons for doing so are of dubious relevance – for instance, because the librarian finds those works subjectively offensive.”
“If public libraries insist on having a censorship policy then users, especially children and their parents or guardians, must be clearly informed that the library’s holdings may not be comprehensive as a result of the policy.”
Craig Simpson, The Telegraph, 18th March 2023.
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As the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, I’ve been campaigning against the recording of “non-crime hate incidents” by the police for three years so I’m delighted the Home Secretary has produced this draft guidance. She hasn’t done away with the practice altogether, but if the police follow her advice to use their common sense and have due regard to the right to freedom of expression before recording an NCHI this is a huge win.
Toby Young, Daily Express, 13th March 2023.
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The Free Speech Union has asked the Charity Commission for an inquiry, claiming the imam’s comments breached “good community relations”.
Ben Ellery and James Beal, The Times, 11th March 2023.
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This decision was criticised today by the Free Speech Union, which warned that if the boys’ names were recorded in the incident reports they could show up years later on enhanced criminal records checks.
Toby Young, its general secretary, noted that new rules from the College of Policing require there to be a motivation of prejudice or hate before police record an event as a “non-crime hate incident”.
Rory Tingle, Elizabeth Haigh and Chris Brooke, Daily Mail, 2nd March 2023.
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The Free Speech Union also questioned why West Yorkshire police had recorded the episode as a “non-crime hate incident”, which it said contradicted national guidance because it appeared to be a trivial matter.
Toby Young, general secretary of the union, sought an assurance that no data had been recorded about the four boys involved or, if it had, to request its immediate deletion. As the school said there had been no “malicious intent”, the recording was inconsistent with rules set by the College of Policing, the national standards body, Young wrote.
Young wrote: “We are hard pressed to imagine a sequence of events more likely to chill public debate and freedom of expression than recording this episode as a ‘hate incident’ and attaching that data to the children’s records, in spite of the absence of any malicious intent.”
Fiona Hamilton and Ben Ellery, The Times, 1st March 2023.
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Toby Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, wrote: “The Telegraph has got hold of a cache of WhatsApp messages between Matt Hancock and the main decision-makers during the pandemic. It confirms our worst suspicions. They weren’t ‘following the science’. It was a clown show.”
Telegraph Reporters, The Telegraph, 1st March 2023.
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Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, has written to Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, to urge her to change course.
He said: “The Equality Act has poisoned the atmosphere in workplaces up and down the country. Why on earth is a Conservative Government extending the scope of the Equality Act, so when we’re in pubs, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and sports grounds we’ll have to constantly be looking over our shoulders to make sure we’re not being overheard by the banter police? This is the opposite of the ‘war on woke’. It’s extending the writ of the woke thought police to every nook and cranny of British society.”
Camilla Turner, The Telegraph, 26th February 2023.
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Speaking to Breitbart London, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Toby Young, responded: “I think this is a step forward, but Puffin needs to go further and stick a banner on the woke versions of the book that says ‘CENSORED’ in massive letters. That way, people will know what they’re buying.”
Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart, 25th February 2023.
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Later this month, Toby Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union (FSU), will give the National Conference of University Professors’ (NCUP) annual lecture.
Roger Watson, Times Higher Education, 24th February 2023.
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