Free Speech

Not that I am watching GB News, never have and quite honestly most likely never will (I need to have my head checked the day I do watch them!), but the comments made with regard to political commentator Ava Edwards one evening on September on his talk show on a British TV channel you honestly don’t need to know or watch ever are completely out of order.

I am not going to repeat what Laurence Fox said, and quite honestly I don’t even post a link to sites which do, as this is really bottom drawer stuff, the kind of comment only an ignoramus of the highest order would ever utter in public – and most likely in private. Was Mr. Fox drunk on the night? Or under the influence of some other noxious substance? Or is he just an i****? I don’t know and quite honestly I don’t want to know either. There’s simply no excuse. Ever.

And then he refused to apologise and said that he is allowed to make these remarks hiding behind the mantle of ‘free speech’? We all have said things or behaved in a manner, which, with hindsight, we regretted – or were made to understand that they were wrong. Not so Mr Fox. So, as a result, GB News have suspended him, when actually he should have been sacked!

As you may have guessed, GB News is not exactly my cup of tea, and I question the mental health of all the reputable presenters from other channels who have joined them in recent years. But accepting behaviour like this ultimately undermines the little credibility the channel has, and that can’t be a bad thing in a democratic and liberal society. Such behaviour has nothing to do with woke culture, and while I for one am also critical to some extent of the level of political correctness expected nowadays, I certainly never have and never will condone offensive behaviour and language like that. Mr. Fox seems to be looking for ‘the lighter moments in this joyless new cancel culture’, all I can say is keep looking as nobody right in their mind can find anything ‘light’ or ‘humorous’ in this kind of comment.

Such behaviour and comments belong in the stone age, and they most certainly have nothing at all to do with free speech. So, Mr. Fox, why don’t you crawl back under the rock you came out from? As far as GB News is concerned, their right-wing credentials are well established by now, however, this should not be an excuse for accepting such conduct. I suppose right now their credibility even with their core audience is at stake. Laurence Fox and some others have since been sacked by GB news (and rightly so!).

As of August 2023 GB News was the subject of seven investigations into breaches of Ofcom‘s (the British media regulator) impartiality rules that politicians, apart from exceptional circumstances should not act as newsreaders, reporters or interviewers. What worries me is that tolerating such speech on a national news channel (however unimportant it may be) influences public opinion. A bit like the algorithms one Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) which feed you more posts of the kind you keep watching and hence create a confirmation bias, potentially making such charged comments acceptable over time. A very worrying trend if you ask me…