A New Hope

Happy New Year to all our listeners! We begin with some good news from the Spectator. An article penned by Fraser Nelson, the magazine’s editor, reveals the pressure he came under to cancel Professor Karol Sikora’s appearance at a panel discussion on Britain’s cancer crisis. As Fraser explains, the event sponsor, which had been teed up to contribute £25,000, was concerned that the professor did not align with its “values”. It is heartening that there are still media outlets standing for free expression, even when that means losing money (in this instance, sufficient money to keep a staffer employed for a year). We move on to discuss the FSU’s submissions to two consultations on diversity and inclusion. They closed in December and were initiated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) respectively. Listeners will not be surprised to hear that we expressed our firm opposition to the proposals. We are concerned that they would further suppress free speech in the workplace, a real effect that we have seen repeatedly in our case work. We round off this first episode of 2024 with a look back at the final two FSU events of 2023, our Christmas comedy night, and the FSU annual Christmas review.      “That’s Debatable!” is edited by Jason Clift.