John Cooper is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway.
‘And now back to Venice, and those effing gondolas…’
The screen at Newton Stewart cinema was filled with amazing images of the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge but the commentator – Michael Palin – had given the lie to the idea that this was a travel documentary.
It was actually a spoof short from the Monty Python team ahead of the main feature, The Life of Brian.
It was 1979 and my father, who I had persuaded to slip me in – far too young – was outraged at the language, and prepared to leave.
‘But Dad,’ I protested ,‘we haven’t even seen Christianity being traduced yet!’ for the newspapers were full of faux outrage that the film was an attack on the country’s dominant religion.
It was, on reflection, a moment that taught me about free speech. My father didn’t care for the swearing, but a bit of gentle mockery of the most ardent adherents of religion? Bit of a hoot.
What drew me to Conservative values at an early age was that it was rooted in the idea of treating people as you find them, and not prejudging them.
Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selaisse encapsulated it brilliantly in a speech to the UN when he said: ‘The colour of a man’s skin should be of no more significance than the colour of his eye.’
And, oh, that we could live in times where Shawnee chief Tecumseh’s mantra: ‘Trouble no man about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand they respect yours’ holds sway.
But ours is an imperfect world, and so we have laws as guardrails.
Burning a Koran or a Bible is nasty, a calculated insult, and there may well be circumstances where it goes beyond protest into plain illegality.
Scots Law has a fabulous thing called Breach of the Peace, its central premise being that accused ‘placed the lieges in a state of fear or alarm’.
The lieges are the people, and the remit is so wide, the police can use it to cover everything from obstreperous drunks to book-burners.
Such a catch-all is a handy tool for policing the streets, and an accused can always argue in court that ‘the lieges’ were unperturbed.
What we do not need is a blasphemy law.
Pricking pomposity is a British national sport. We know instinctively the higher the horse, the harder the fall.
So we cannot have a pecking order for religions; cannot have them set above criticism, because freedom to criticise ideas is true freedom of speech.
Incredibly, Labour’s ludicrously named Social Cohesion Action Plan is flirting with a blasphemy law with its imprecise ‘anti-Muslim hate’ clause.
My MP colleague Paul Holmes said in Parliament: ‘The definition risks undermining free speech within the law, it risks hindering legitimate criticism of Islamism, and it risks creating a back-door blasphemy law.’
When I said: ‘Why are we, in this place, the cockpit of democracy, discussing a blasphemy law by the back door?’ the Labour benches fairly seethed.
One of their atavistic ‘orcs and goons’ – as our Leader of the Opposition called them – opined at volume that this ‘was beneath me’.
Scratch the surface of tolerant, modern, Labour and too often there is the tribal hard Left, red in political posture as well as in tooth and claw.
And how ironic that in Parliament, in a debate billed ‘Protecting what matters’, Labour should seek to belittle and drown out legitimately held opposing views: ‘You’re either for us; or against us.’
Well, I’m against. I’m against intolerance. I’m against scrambling to appease sectarian sections of the voting public. I’m against politicians too weak to take a stand against narrow pressure groups.
And I’m against blasphemy laws, for in a democracy, no one has the right to not be insulted or offended.
John Cooper is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway.
‘And now back to Venice, and those effing gondolas…’
The screen at Newton Stewart cinema was filled with amazing images of the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge but the commentator – Michael Palin – had given the lie to the idea that this was a travel documentary.
It was actually a spoof short from the Monty Python team ahead of the main feature, The Life of Brian.
It was 1979 and my father, who I had persuaded to slip me in – far too young – was outraged at the language, and prepared to leave.
‘But Dad,’ I protested ,‘we haven’t even seen Christianity being traduced yet!’ for the newspapers were full of faux outrage that the film was an attack on the country’s dominant religion.
It was, on reflection, a moment that taught me about free speech. My father didn’t care for the swearing, but a bit of gentle mockery of the most ardent adherents of religion? Bit of a hoot.
What drew me to Conservative values at an early age was that it was rooted in the idea of treating people as you find them, and not prejudging them.
Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selaisse encapsulated it brilliantly in a speech to the UN when he said: ‘The colour of a man’s skin should be of no more significance than the colour of his eye.’
And, oh, that we could live in times where Shawnee chief Tecumseh’s mantra: ‘Trouble no man about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand they respect yours’ holds sway.
But ours is an imperfect world, and so we have laws as guardrails.
Burning a Koran or a Bible is nasty, a calculated insult, and there may well be circumstances where it goes beyond protest into plain illegality.
Scots Law has a fabulous thing called Breach of the Peace, its central premise being that accused ‘placed the lieges in a state of fear or alarm’.
The lieges are the people, and the remit is so wide, the police can use it to cover everything from obstreperous drunks to book-burners.
Such a catch-all is a handy tool for policing the streets, and an accused can always argue in court that ‘the lieges’ were unperturbed.
What we do not need is a blasphemy law.
Pricking pomposity is a British national sport. We know instinctively the higher the horse, the harder the fall.
So we cannot have a pecking order for religions; cannot have them set above criticism, because freedom to criticise ideas is true freedom of speech.
Incredibly, Labour’s ludicrously named Social Cohesion Action Plan is flirting with a blasphemy law with its imprecise ‘anti-Muslim hate’ clause.
My MP colleague Paul Holmes said in Parliament: ‘The definition risks undermining free speech within the law, it risks hindering legitimate criticism of Islamism, and it risks creating a back-door blasphemy law.’
When I said: ‘Why are we, in this place, the cockpit of democracy, discussing a blasphemy law by the back door?’ the Labour benches fairly seethed.
One of their atavistic ‘orcs and goons’ – as our Leader of the Opposition called them – opined at volume that this ‘was beneath me’.
Scratch the surface of tolerant, modern, Labour and too often there is the tribal hard Left, red in political posture as well as in tooth and claw.
And how ironic that in Parliament, in a debate billed ‘Protecting what matters’, Labour should seek to belittle and drown out legitimately held opposing views: ‘You’re either for us; or against us.’
Well, I’m against. I’m against intolerance. I’m against scrambling to appease sectarian sections of the voting public. I’m against politicians too weak to take a stand against narrow pressure groups.
And I’m against blasphemy laws, for in a democracy, no one has the right to not be insulted or offended.