The Past is a Free Country

‘Britain isn’t a free country’. That’s the title of a recent Spectator article by Ed West and we fear he could be onto something. At the very least, it seems that we are no longer as sure of our freedoms as we used to be. All is not lost, though! The FSU’s success rate on cases now stands at nearly 75%, proving that it is possible to resist cancel culture and win. Also good to see is that we Brits still bristle when our personal freedoms are overtly threatened, as evidenced by a recent incident involving musician Brendan Kavanagh. At London’s St Pancras station, ‘Dr K’, as he’s called on YouTube, had a run-in with a group of Chinese tourists who claimed their privacy was being infringed by the livestream of his piano playing. But, as listeners may already know, this attempt at suppression led only to a far more viral response. The story was even written up in USA Today and Dr K was invited to discuss it live on TalkTV. At the end of today’s episode, we come back to the conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity and some interesting insight from Professor Richard Dawkins. ‘That's Debatable!’ is edited by Jason Clift.