On Being Problematic

In a major win for workplace free speech, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have abandoned plans to impose new diversity and inclusion rules on financial firms after strong pushback, including from the FSU. Had the proposals gone ahead, they would have placed sweeping new obligations on a significant portion of the UK’s financial sector. In January 2024, we responded to two parallel consultations (here and here), warning that the proposals would create a climate where employees felt unable to challenge radical progressive orthodoxies on a cluster of issues without fear of professional consequences. Our response to the FCA consultation was submitted via its online portal, but you can read our letter to the PRA here. We move on to discuss the case of Ben Woods, a member of the Free Speech Union (FSU), who has worked at Waitrose’s Henley branch in Oxfordshire for 25 years, having joined the supermarket as a teenager. However, after accusing its long-serving employee of misconduct over a dossier of more than 30 social media posts, the company has now swiftly suspended him. The case was reported in both The Telegraph and The Mail and you can support Ben’s s fundraiser page here. Thames Valley Police have admitted acting unlawfully in arresting an adult-education teacher at a local proclamation of the accession of King Charles in September 2022. Symon Hill, 47, was going home from church in Oxford on the Sunday morning three days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II when he found his way blocked by the ceremony. Following the public declaration of Charles as king, he called out from the back of the crowd: “Who elected him?” He then pursued legal action for wrongful arrest and has finally won his case, together with £2,500 in compensation. Now a trainee Baptist minister, Mr Hill (somewhat understatedly) said that he’d been “surprised” by the entire affair and by the two-and-a-half years it had taken the police to admit their mistake. We end the episode with a discussion on a report in The Telegraph that Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order last Friday gutting the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – Voice of America’s parent agency – and several other government departments.  ‘That's Debatable!’  is edited by Jason Clift.