Away from the subject of BBC bias for a while...
First there came the pre-exhibition build-up about 'Blasphemy', "a series of about 40 paintings celebrating the right to criticize" by an up-and-coming artist...
Then came the increasingly inevitable follow-up:
Lakhveer Azad – Blasphemy
The gallery has taken the decision to cancel this exhibition due to the potentially offensive nature of its content after liaison with the Metropolitan Police.
As the presenter of Radio 4's Making History tweets:
May your god help us (as Dave Allen might have put it)!
I recall the hubris past when Britons would pat themselves on the back for not having anything to do with written constitutions - basically because we didn't need one.
ReplyDeleteWell this is what happens when the police have no constitutional duty to protect free speech.
Free speech is half dead in this country. The Cameronian legislation on "extremism" will be used to administer a final lethal injection.
Until gallery owners and publishers have the courage to stand up to this kind of dictatorship free speech will die – even if that means defying the police, who clearly have no appetite to protect what was once thought to be a defining characteristic of a modern Western society
ReplyDeleteThere is already too much legislation in this country. What Cameron is doing is equivalent to paying protection money to a gang. Does he really believe all the Imams up and down the country will preach nothing but love and peace in return for a special status for “islamaphobia”.