Media

The most nauseating phrase in the English language is “I’m not against free speech but…”

James Delingpole, Breitbart, 29th Feb 2020.

Free speech in the UK is in crisis. Police investigate and arrest people for making offensive comments online, ‘problematic’ speakers are shut down on campus, and outraged Twittermobs agitate to have people sacked from their jobs.

Toby Young, Spiked, 28th Feb 2020.

In this special edition of the spiked podcast, Toby Young joins spiked’s Tom Slater and Fraser Myers to discuss the launch of his Free Speech Union, the new threats to free speech, and what we can all do to face down censorship.

Tom Slater and Fraser Myers interview Toby Young, Spiked Podcast, 28th Feb 2020.

Many people now believe that hate speech includes: training your dog to do a Nazi salute, sharing rude limericks about trans people, reading the Daily Mail, debating differences between genetic populations, suggesting immigration may affect wages, quoting Shakespeare or saying that women are those born with two X chromosomes.

Juliet Samuel, The Telegraph, 29th Feb 2020.

Writer and education pioneer Toby Young this week set up a Free Speech Union because, astonishingly, in 2020 free speech is under threat.

Katharine Birbalsingh, The Sun, 26th Feb 2020.

Good on Toby Young for defending people’s right to blaspheme against PC orthodoxy.

Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, 26th Feb 2020.

The line between freedom of speech and the freedom to incite violence is one of the hardest distinctions to put into practice. Toby Young, however, who has recently created the Free Speech Union, may have a better idea than most.

Nico Johnson, The Post Millennial, 29th Feb 2020.

Listen to Toby Young of the FSU and Trevor Phillips of Index on Censorship, who joined Justin Webb on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme to discuss the launching of the FSU and the state of free speech in Britain today.

Justin Webb interviews Toby Young and Trevor Phillips, BBC Radio 4 Today, 24th Feb 2020.

The threats to free speech are not imaginary. One is the confusion of reasoned criticism with hatred, so that any principled dissent from fashionable dogma is immediately slapped down as “phobic”.

Prof Nigel Biggar, The Times, 24th Feb 2020.

Scarcely a week passes without yet another attempt to silence those whose views are different or in some way inconvenient.

Toby Young, The Mail on Sunday, 22nd Feb 2020.