Mom Who Sent F-Slur Texts 'Could Face 10 Years' Jail' In UK | Interview + Debate Feat Andrew Wilson
A clip of Piers Morgan refusing to say the F-slur while being interviewed by Tucker Carlson went viral last week, ramping up the debate on free speech and the question of whether the UK has a problem with language being policed. Tucker claimed that Piers was afraid of being arrested if he said the word - but actually, he just didn’t want to say it. However, it comes as a mother-of-four has been arrested in the UK and convicted for using it in text messages about a man she claims had assaulted her. Elizabeth Kinney, the woman in question, joins Uncensored to tell more of her story, including how 11 police officers burst in on her naked in the bathtub and how she’s now being warned she could be facing up to 10 years in prison. Then, to react to Elizabeth’s story and to debate whether using that F-word really is so offensive; The Crucible host Andrew Wilson, BET News host Marc Lamont Hill, Spiked chief political writer Brendan O’Neill and LGBT activist Lewis Oakley. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Juvenon: Take care of your heart – Visit https://bloodflow7.com/Uncensored and Get 30% OFF your BloodFlow-7 order today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Orwellian Police Surveillance00:14:47
11 police officers turned up.
They basically said you had committed a hate crime by using that F word in a private text message.
I was in also shock.
If the state can pry on our private conversations, that really does take us into Orwellian territory.
You don't have a free nation there.
Who cares if she was like, you know what, I am homophobic.
And I said it because I'm homophobic.
That's her business.
You can say what you want.
Something can be a homophobic slur, even if a person doesn't realize that that's what they're doing.
Andrew, would you use that word?
Sure, you use it all the time.
It's one of the best ways to describe friends.
Any minute now, we are going to see the annual controversy about the Pogue's great song Fairy Tale of New York, which has the famous lyric, you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy.
The Oxford English Dictionary has just named rage bait as its word of the year.
They define it as content deliberately designed to elicit outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive.
I thought it was only appropriate to mention that story given the hullabaloo over my polite reticence to use the F word.
And no, as you're probably well aware, it's not that F word.
Would you say the word faggot on camera?
No.
Why?
Because you don't want to get arrested, do you?
There's no way to be arrested.
Oh, because it's so harmful to people.
No, no.
Is it like gay bashing?
What's wrong with that?
Actually, my whole issue with the whole trans debate, for example, is you don't need to slide into actually saying derogatory stuff about trans people to make the point that women's rights should be protected.
You don't need to.
Well, I agree.
So I don't believe it.
No, no, no, but to magic words.
I don't believe in needlessly sneering.
I'm not smearing anybody.
I just think...
But would you use that word?
Faggot?
Yeah.
I just did.
Faggot, faggot, faggot.
Okay, but why?
And I'm using it because you're not allowed to, because you're.
You're not allowed to.
Go ahead.
I don't want to.
Say, I love gay people.
Faggot.
I'm allowed to.
I just choose not to.
Well, we'll talk about the F word again shortly with my panel who are standing by.
But Tucker Carlson's claim that I could be arrested for saying it was based on a real story he'd read in the Daily Mail.
A nursing home worker had been arrested and convicted, he said, for using that word in text messages about a man she claimed had assaulted her.
As I said in the interview, it sounded utterly ridiculous, ladies, and a string of examples of an assault on free speech in the UK.
But I hadn't actually read the story and I said I'd look into it afterwards.
That's exactly what I did.
And I'm pleased to say that Elizabeth Kinney, the mother of four who was convicted over her text messages, joins me in the studio now.
Elizabeth, thank you for coming in and joining us today for this debate.
Just first of all, just to clear up exactly what happened to you, explain to me and the viewers what went down.
I was assaulted by a male acquaintance.
Physically or sexually?
Physically.
It wasn't my ex-partner.
It was a friend, like a group of friends.
The female acquaintance that basically she basically was getting jealous over me because she started seeing my ex-partner.
So she was trying to cause trouble for me, which ended up resulting in me getting attacked.
After that, obviously, I went to the hospital and I sent her messages and pictures of my injuries just to prove like what basically what she'd caused.
And obviously, I was very upset at the time.
I'd had inflammation on my brain.
I had a skull fracture, which made me not really feel like myself at the time.
I was very upset and I was very angry with what had happened to me, which made me say her messages that I really wouldn't have said.
So you sent her a load of messages.
I mean, would you categorize them as abusive, highly abusive?
It was more just to point into the fact that what had happened to me, I only just sent her pictures of my injuries and obviously said, like, why would you cause this much trouble for me and stuff and make up lies?
And like, which now resulted in me being attacked.
And she then reported you for what she said were harassing messages.
Yeah, I only, it was a five minutes period of time when I just...
How did you feel when the police contacted you?
Well, I was shocked.
I didn't expect that.
I mean...
Because these are private text messages.
Throughout my life, I've had messages with my friends and we've fallen out and we've said things that aren't very nice to each other, but you would never really expect that to go any further than that.
I've heard 11 police officers turned up.
Yeah.
I mean, that's completely ridiculous.
Yeah, I'd left my front door open.
I was waiting for my dad to come to the house.
I was actually in the bath.
And they opened the door themselves.
And just came in.
And came in.
And you're in the bath?
Yeah.
And what did they say to you?
Well, I heard my name, which was one female out of the lot of them.
And 10 male officers.
Yeah.
And then I heard my name and I thought, well, it might be my sister because it didn't sound like someone who was...
Because obviously I was upstairs in the bath.
And then they just come up the stairs and they didn't give me any privacy or anything.
You were naked?
Yes.
How did that make you feel?
Disgusted and really upset.
I was crying my eyes out.
And what did they say to you?
What do they say they were there for?
Well, I was just asking them, can they just leave the female officer and can they please go downstairs?
As obviously I was upset and I had no clothes on and he kind of wanted to watch me get changed and I was very upset about that.
In the end they did send the males down the stairs and the female officer sat with me.
I was crying my eyes.
I was really upset.
And then I said, what are you even here for?
Because I was shocked.
I was in utter shock.
And she said, for malicious communications, hate crime and malicious communications.
And I said, what for?
And she obviously, they said, we'll discuss that when we get to the basically to the police station.
So you go to the station and then they outline that it's these messages you sent to this friend that you've had this argument with, all connected to the fact that you yourself, as you say, have been assaulted.
I'm not going to get into that so much.
One of the more inflammatory things about this whole story, which Tucker Carlson picked up on, was in the course of these text messages, you use the F word.
We've already said what that word is.
He repeated it many times.
I choose not to say it.
You can do what you like.
But that word, did you intend it in the messages to be a derogatory, homophobic slur?
Absolutely.
Because that is the alleged crime, is that you were promoting hate towards gay people by using that word.
First of all, a lot of my friends, again, I have got, I am not homophobic in any way, shape or form.
The word in question is a word that in where we, in our town, where we live, we associate that word with somebody who, well, mainly males who hit females.
Like, it's never a word for a sexuality.
It's always a word where we live in our context, as in, like, basically a weak person.
For instance, my brother's best friend got sent off the pitch in football last week because one of the guys fell over and you know, he called, he called him that name, but it was just a joke, but he got sent off the pitch.
But in our context, like, it just means like...
And you got a heavier, I mean, in the end, you pleaded guilty.
First of all, why did you plead guilty?
My solicitor told me so.
Right.
And I've never been in trouble before, and I was really concerned about it.
You had no criminal record?
No.
Because the malicious communications offences, which is under which you were prosecuted, such as sending grossly offensive messages, can receive a hate crime sentence uplift if motivated by hostility towards a protected characteristic like race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.
So you got an uplifted sentence.
They basically said you had committed a hate crime by using that F word, which, given that you had no intent to be homophobic with it, for the reasons you've outlined, just seems preposterous.
Yeah.
In a private text message to somebody.
I didn't even say to the person.
Who you were angry with because you had been assaulted.
Yes.
Has anything happened about the assault?
When I was in the hospital, the police were called by the doctors and nurses, and everyone in question were arrested at that given point.
Then I end up getting arrested a week after that.
And what's happened with the...
No one ever came back to me to discuss that.
No one wanted statements from me.
They were just obviously more.
It seemed like they weren't.
There'll be no prosecution.
So the fact you're assaulted was deemed to be less serious, it would appear, than the fact you'd use this F word in communication, private communication with this woman you'd had a falling out with.
Yeah.
What do you feel about that?
Very, very disheartened and upset.
It's destroyed my character as a person.
I've been a care assistant since I was 17 and I want to be a nurse.
I like helping people.
I want to save people's lives.
I have got a good character.
Obviously, I'm still working in my post now.
My managers haven't let me go for the reason being they know me as a person.
They stood by you.
I've got everyone's got my back in this.
So what reaction have you had from the community?
Everyone's having me back and everyone's been so supportive.
I mean, I've not heard one bad word said about this whole that everyone's just as disgusted as I am, how far it's gone.
I didn't even know it could be a crime to in a private message to use language like that.
Neither did I. What do you think it says about free speech in this country?
Well, it's not as heavy as it is in America, but I believe that.
Actually, it's better in America.
This would never have happened in America.
Their First Amendment protects your right to be offensive if you want to be.
I mean, you're not, you know, it's one thing if you came in and said, yeah, I said all these things and I stand by it and I wanted to be homophobic, that's one thing.
But you clearly, you had a, you know, you were angry because of what had happened to you.
You were in a hospital getting treatment for injuries sustained in what you say was an attack.
And I don't know, obviously, about that side of it, but I'll take your word for it.
And then you have 11 police officers charging into your home as you're having a bath.
It was very, very frightening.
I probably like I've had nightmares and everything about it.
And like I've got, I've got cameras on my house and stuff.
I'll keep them on and make sure the doors are always locked now because it's not even the public that anyone needs to be scared of these days.
It's the police.
Did you think you might go to prison for this?
Yeah.
Did they warn you you might?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
Five to ten years.
That's what they said you may get.
Yeah.
Because that's the maximum sentence you could have got.
For hate crime.
Again, I mean, what were you feeling when you heard that?
I was devastated.
You've got kids.
I was devastated.
Four kids, you have?
Yes.
How old are they?
15, 12, 9, and 3.
I mean, it would have been devastating.
It was.
And it still is now, to be honest.
Right.
I mean, you end up, you got it, you pleaded guilty, got a sentence to a 12-month community order with requirements.
You undertook 72 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation activity days, and you were ordered to pay 364 pounds in cost, about $500.
So you didn't go to prison in the end, which must have been a great relief.
Yeah, of course.
When you look back on the whole thing, though, what do you feel about it?
I feel upset.
The fact that I feel like I'm scared to even, I'm even scared to say the word now.
That's why I'm saying the word in question because I'm not.
That is Tucker Carlson's point and the reason he kept saying it.
I've known Tucker a long time.
He wasn't saying it to be homophobic.
He was saying it to make the point that he was in England and he didn't care about whether somebody was going to arrest him.
He was suggesting that I didn't want to say it because I was fearful of arrest.
That wasn't the case.
I don't like using that word full stop because gay friends of mine say it's offensive to them, even though many of them use it.
But it's the same argument as the N-word for black people, right?
They use it amongst themselves to reclaim that word, as they put it.
And I understand that argument.
But if a white person uses it at them, it's obviously a disgusting, racist slur.
And I think we all know that, right?
What's extraordinary about this is I was talking to my team.
None of us realized that using this particular word that got you into so much trouble in a text message could ever lead to a potential prison sentence in this country.
Neither did I.
It was shocking.
And I'm still shocked now, if I'm honest.
But obviously, I just believe that we all need to be careful with...
Well, do we?
So that's an interesting question about this.
Do we need to be careful or do we need to fight back a bit about this?
Is it right that you're sitting here too scared of saying that word, even in the context of talking about what happened to you and not as a slur?
You know, we live in a free democratic society.
You should be able to say it in the context of what happened to you without fear of arrest.
Yeah.
It seems to me.
And yet I understand why you don't want to, because you were told you might go to prison for five to ten years.
Not just that.
Obviously, it's not in my character.
I did that when I, after the assault, when I had a brain injury.
And like, you won't, you don't act like yourself.
You act out of character when you've had an injury.
What did your gay friends say about this?
I've had some beautiful messages from one of my managers as well saying that they know I am not homophobic 100%.
I am the most kindest, loveliest person.
And to not take any notice about what's been said about me and that everyone knows and they've all got my back and they're all on my side.
Did any of the police feel uncomfortable about this when they were?
No.
The Double Wrong of Arrests00:07:05
Nobody's even asked me, am I okay after the attack?
Nobody.
No one's followed up on the attack at all.
I just find that extraordinary.
So do I. Especially in the courtroom when I got charged and the judges, nobody.
The judges could see the pictures, the messages that I sent with the injuries, which were quite bad.
And still, I wasn't asked.
Was I okay?
Absolutely extraordinary.
Elizabeth, thank you for coming in.
You're welcome.
I'm very sorry about what happened to you.
Not least because you're just being very honest.
You said, you know, you had five minutes of rage because of what had happened to you.
You lost your mind a bit.
Used some intemperate language.
You clearly regret it.
You wish you hadn't done it.
But to go through all that in England in 2025 seems to me absolutely outrageous.
It is.
I wish you luck with everyone.
Thank you.
And with your career.
Thank you very much for coming in.
Thank you.
For more on the other F word, joining me on the panel, our host of the crucible, Andrew Wilson, author of Bisexual, the Basics and host of the Bisexual Brunch podcast, Lewis Oakley, host of Abet News, Mark Lamont Hill, and the author and chief political writer at Spiked Brendan O'Neill.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Brendan O'Neill, let me start with you.
I just did this extraordinary interview with Elizabeth Kinney, which I know you guys have all listened to.
What did you make of that?
I mean, I could barely believe what I was hearing.
I think it's obscene.
I mean, if what Elizabeth's saying is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, it sounds like a real double wrong has been done here.
Firstly, there is the fact that someone was arrested for saying a word.
That should never happen in my view, whatever word they use, even if they use it in public.
But then secondly, she was arrested for using a word in a private communication.
That is an outrage, completely and utterly obscene.
That really does take us into the territory of thought policing.
If the state can pry on our private conversations, drag us into the dark for things that we say to friends or frenemies or enemies, whoever it might be, that really does take us into Orwellian territory where the government has the right to snoop on what we say to fellow citizens.
I think that is outrageous.
Lewis Oakley, I mean, I just, to start with, as a gay man, did you get offended?
As a bisexual.
I apologize.
As a bisexual man, are you offended by the F word?
Yeah, I think that it's definitely got connotations there that are offensive.
I mean, it's used to demean people and say that, you know, gay people are, you know, subhuman, disgusting, less manly.
And that's what's inferred by it.
So when it's used as abuse for young kids, you know, young 15-year-olds that are being called this in the playground, yes, it holds meaning.
It, you know, leads to mental health issues.
It leads to people feeling that there is something.
But it is not being used as a homophobic slur.
In other words, it's not being targeted at a gay person.
And, you know, her explanation was that where she lives in the north of England.
Well, no, Mark, I've come to you.
You might laugh, but I know there are parts of England where they would definitely not consider this to be a homophobic slur.
They would just do it as a bit of, as they would see it, quite harmless banter.
Now, we can argue about that, but it's different to say the N-word over here, which everyone would have a clear idea about.
I don't think that this F-word is seen in quite the same context, hence why she used it here, but not in a way that could be remotely construed as homophobic, which then begs the question, why has she been prosecuted for a hate crime prompting hate at gay people?
Can I just say, I think that it's almost worse that he was straight, you know, because what she's doing, she's really angry in the moment.
I totally get it.
And she's thinking, how can I insult this man that has done this terrible thing to me?
And by the way, like, you know, I hope he gets convicted too.
How can I demean him?
I know I'll call him gay because gay is so lower.
Gay is so like, you know, anti-masculinic.
And that's the whole point.
That was the word she.
There was a thousand other words she could have used to describe it.
She says she's not homophobic and wasn't saying it as a gay slur.
Okay, but so what's the thing?
You wanted to say that people that use the N-word to describe people aren't racist.
It's just their banter between their friends?
Well, no, because I think there is a qualitative difference in severity of these words.
So race is more important than sexuality.
Well, it's an interesting, arguable point.
I mean, Mark, look, I would never use personally that F word.
I would certainly never use the N-word privately or in public.
There probably is a qualitative difference between the two, I would say.
Most people might think that.
Certainly in England, I can imagine a lot of people using it, playgrounds and stuff, and not intending it to be a homophobic slur, not even knowing it is.
So it's not as clear-cut as you might think it is.
But regardless, as Brendan said, you know, regardless of whether you think it is or isn't, the idea that you communicate that word in a private conversation to someone via text message who you know, and the next thing 11 police officers are charging into your house to arrest you, that can't be right, surely.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
So you raised two points.
The first one, where I disagreed with you, wasn't whether or not people saw it as a homophobic slur.
My point is something can be a homophobic slur or a racist slur or an anti-Semitic slur or whatever, even if a person doesn't realize that that's what they're doing.
In the United States, I've spent a lot of time in locker rooms as an athlete.
I spent a lot of times in fraternity houses.
I spent a lot of time just in my neighborhood.
And that word was used a lot.
And it was often used not against gay people, although it certainly was used against gay people.
It was also used against ostensibly straight people, as my colleague just said, for the purpose of demeaning, for joking.
Sometimes it wasn't even an intense joke.
Sometimes it wasn't outrageous.
It was just a play.
It was used ostensibly in a playful way.
But the idea is if the best way to mock you or to tease you or to make you seem less like a man in a society where being a man is the height of humanity is to call you gay.
You'd never be arrested.
Yeah, but hang on.
You'd never be arrested in America for using that word because the First Amendment would protect you.
You could be offensive in America in that way without actually treading into criminal activity because the First Amendment is there to protect that very thing, actually.
It protects all speech, including hate speech.
So that's the second piece of it, right?
I just wanted to address the idea of whether it's homophobic speech or not.
But even if it's hate speech, let's say it rises to the level of hate speech.
Regardless, I don't think that the surveillance state should be overseeing us to decide when and where we're making those hate speech, even though I deplore hate speech.
And then I also don't think the carceral state should be criminalizing or intensifying criminal penalties for using it.
So yeah, it's awful to do.
You shouldn't do it.
But I could be the worst piece of human garbage on earth for using a word or a slur.
It doesn't mean that I should get arrested for it.
Protecting Hate Speech Rights00:02:25
I think there's other ways to resolve that.
Yeah, Andrew Wilson, you know, it was very interesting when Tucker jumped me with this because I wasn't aware of the case.
So I was doing Tucker's show.
We had a 90-minute chat about all sorts of things.
The main premise of his conversation was that my country's gone to the dogs.
I was defending it vigorously in some parts and agreeing with him in other parts, as I would America, by the way.
Good and bad, but two great countries.
However, when he went on this rant about this, it took me by surprise.
I didn't not say this F word because I thought I might be arrested.
I wasn't aware of the story.
I went and did some research and I discovered somebody had actually been arrested in my country for using that word in a text message.
Having, she says, being beaten up by a guy, having treatment in hospital and texting somebody that she believed had been partly responsible for her getting the beating.
And that beating has not been properly investigated.
So I don't know enough about that part of it to determine how clear-cut that all was.
But regardless, the idea that she could use that word in a text message and the next thing, 11 police are banging on, not even banging it, they're coming in and she's having a bath naked.
Absolutely extraordinary, isn't it?
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Well, it's actually, I'm not even surprised.
Social Context and Free Nations00:04:24
So, the idea here is: I guess you could get SA'd, and if you call your assailant the quote F-slur, you go to jail, right?
Some country you got there, some country you got there.
By the way, let's point this out: that progressives have for years as these guys say, Oh, you know, hey, we don't want to, you know, put in hate speech laws and have people arrested and this and that.
They've been doing the same type of stuff for years.
They do depersoning, debanking, deplatforming, keeping people away from their cash.
If you touch on any issues that they don't like, they've been doing that for years to conservatives.
So, they're doing the exact same thing that the government over there is doing.
They're just using private marketplace to do it.
So, what they do is they will go on these massive campaigns to deperson a human being from society because they have wrongth, or they say a word that makes somebody else upset each spaghetti, right?
That's what that's what they do.
And the fact of the matter is, is like who gives a shit?
Who cares if this woman did and didn't care?
Who cares if she was like, you know what?
I am homophobic, and I said it because I'm homophobic.
That's her business.
You can say what you want, you're supposed to, at least in free nations, and that's not what you have there.
And that was Tucker Carlson's point: you don't have a free nation there, you have a nation, which is aggressive.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Out of interest, Andrew, would you use that word?
Sure, you use it all the time.
It's one of the best ways to describe friends.
Would you use it?
Would you use it on a social network?
It's not meant to be.
Look, it's not meant to be.
Can I say it?
Would you say it?
I mean, would you normally use a word like that?
Well, I wouldn't say it for the purposes, for the purposes of TOS, but I mean, if I was allowed to, sure, it's one of my favorite words to say.
There's nothing wrong with the word.
What happens is this: this word is not even being used as a homophobic slur, and it hasn't since I was a kid.
Okay, that's the truth.
People call each other this all the time for literally for fun, just because it's fun.
You'll go, you know, you like run into a buddy of yours.
What's up, F-slur?
Right?
You don't care.
And you give each other a lot.
I don't think that's true.
But it is true.
Listen, I think if you ask if you ask gay people, they will tell you it is often used in a derogatory way and offensive way intended to demean them.
And it's done all the time.
I don't think we can discuss it.
Yeah, sure.
But you know what?
Everything, you can use any word as derogatory if you want to, or you can use words and they're not derogatory.
It depends on the context.
And we're not, we're social creatures.
I'm tired of people acting like socially everybody's retarded.
We know that there's context for words.
And when you say, in proper context, this word to buddies and people on this, you know, whatever, it's not a problem socially, and it never has been.
And Mark might shake his head, but I bet you in high school, he was calling half of his friends that word and they were probably calling it to back.
Why?
Because it's funny.
That's why it's funny.
And it's Mark Lamon Hill.
Was I?
No, but you've never used any derogatory test at school about anyone as a joke.
You ask a different question now.
Okay.
A different question.
His question was: again, the answer to the first question is: no, I didn't use the F-word in high school, as he alleged.
Second question is: Have I ever used an offensive term?
Absolutely.
When I was a child, but as an adult, I like to think that I've grown beyond using the words that I used as a child.
And I agree that social context matters.
And I agree that we should always consider social context.
We live in a society where gay people are still abused, where gay people are still slandered, where gay people are still physically assaulted, where gay people are marginalized.
And that F-word is used very often to do, and it's often accompanied by harm.
And so, if we know that, I agree, when you walk up to your friend and give him a high five and use that word, you may not be attempting to smuggle in homophobia.
I don't think you are.
But what I'm saying is, we're normalizing a word that still accompanies harm and still kind of normalizes what we do and how we treat as a society, LGBTQI folk.
And so, I'm just saying, okay, why don't we pick a different word that doesn't cause all this hellabaloo?
All right, the bigger issue, the problem is, is like because they're not as fun.
And the reason is, the more that you try to make these pushbacks, these social pushbacks, and tell people what they can and can't say, it makes them want to say it more.
Why Pushback Makes Words Worse00:14:41
And you know what, Mark?
Like, that's what happens.
The second you start making social pushback and say, hey, this word you've been calling your friends, you guys have been joking around for years saying this stuff, you're not allowed to say it anymore because now somebody's going to get too upset about it.
It literally gives them incentive to say it more.
That's what happens.
That's how social, that's how social context actually goes.
But that's not what I'm saying.
If you guys wouldn't make a big deal out of it, if you guys wouldn't make it, hang on, hang on, Mark, almost done.
If you guys wouldn't make a big deal out of it, we wouldn't have a big deal, right?
But you guys make the big deal out of it.
All right, let me bring in Brendan because hang on, Mark.
I'll come back to you.
The bigger issue, it seems to me here with the UK is that the Times newspaper recently revealed that police officers are making 12,000 arrests a year under section 127 of the Communications Act and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act.
In other words, similar instances to this.
That's 30 arrests a day over offensive posts on social media and other platforms.
Thousands of people being detained and questioned for sending messages that, quote, cause annoyance, inconvenience, or anxiety to others via the internet, telephone, or mail.
There's been a 58% increase in these arrests since before the pandemic.
I mean, this seems completely nuts to me.
Joe Rogan said they've already arrested 12,000 people for social media posts.
We got a clip of him talking about this.
They've already arrested 12,000 people for social media posts.
That's insane.
Above and beyond every other country, way above Russia.
Russia was like 400 last year.
The UK's 12,000.
Any criticism of immigration, any criticism of grooming gangs and people being raped, any talk about how horrible this is, they come visit you.
It's like someone's trying to destroy England.
Now, I would say, Brenda, that's probably a mischaracterization.
If you actually went over to 12,000 cases, you could probably see a lot of very offensive things in there.
I don't know, but I'm surmising it's not just criticizing an immigration policy that's causing the arrests.
But in a country that's supposed to be one of the leaders of free speech historically in the world, this is pretty terrifying, isn't it?
It's just Kafka stuff.
It's awful.
It's like the Stasi.
You know, older listeners and viewers will remember the German Democratic Republic, and they had the Stasi that would literally listen in on private conversations, that would literally rent out the apartment above the apartment of some dodgy person and listen through the floor to make sure they weren't saying problematic things.
We now have a similar system in the UK.
People are being arrested and in some cases punished for things they say.
And, you know, it's now December.
So any minute now, we are going to see the annual controversy about the Pogue's great song, Fairy Tale of New York, which has the famous lyric, you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy beep.
You know, we're not allowed to say it, apparently, but that is a great song.
That word is often bleeped out.
And this is another issue about these insulting words.
I actually think what's most insulting to gay people, ethnic minority people, all sorts of minority groups, what's most insulting is actually censorship, because censorship infantilizes them.
Censorship says to them, you are such a weak part of society that we need to institute these laws and these rules to protect you from offensive words.
It's actually a reversal of the great gains of the civil rights era when we have these kinds of rules that say we must protect these poor little deers from ever hearing an offensive term.
So I think these words are actually, the power of these words is less worrying to me than the power of censorship to infantilize minority groups and punish people who want to express themselves.
All right, Lewis, as a poor little deer, would you like to respond?
Well, yeah, I want to start with the numbers that you just talked about because I think there is a point where we have to look at the reality of the modern world in which we live.
Yes, we all want to see more convictions for rape and murder.
Those things are very hard to prove.
Whereas communication, we all communicate 90% of it now is online.
But why should the police be policing speech that doesn't actually incite specific violence, which is to me always the line.
So our lawyer cannot cross, right?
If I say to people that you live at a certain address, go around there and attack him, right?
That's a clear incitement to violence against a specific individual.
That's a criminal offense and you should be, I should be arrested for that.
And there should be no issue of that being a free speech issue.
But if I just hate you or want to say derogatory things about you or you do to me, that shouldn't be something that prohibits, that precipitates 11 police turning up at the door.
Well, two things.
We have protected characteristics, right?
We understand that in UK law, it was only 1967 in this country, it stopped being illegal to be gay.
It was only in 2003 that we got rid of things like Section 28.
The law has had a real hand in causing stigma and discrimination against gay people that did not disappear in 20 something years.
So it's right that the law steps in and says, you know what, we've had a hand in this.
We're going to step in and protect you because it takes a preventative measure, much like the NHS, where it says, you know what?
Rather than treat you where you're sick, let's just prevent people from getting sick where we can.
And it's the same thing here.
Yes, the line is calling for violence, but if you can stop people hating on people for their individual identity, you can say you're stupid, you're an idiot, you've done this wrong, whatever.
But if it's targeted, if it's hate on you because of your race because of your sexuality, why does nobody get arrested for calling Donald Trump a Nazi?
Well, no, but you know what?
The Nazi thing is interesting because I do think...
It's not just interesting.
It's probably the most egregious thing you could possibly call somebody is comparing him directly to Adolf Hitler, who murdered 12 million people, who gassed 6 million Jews in concentration camps, right?
The idea that that's the same thing.
But the idea that that is not an arrestable offense by comparison to using the F word against a gay person seems to me to be completely disproportionate.
Well, you're absolutely right.
But here's my thing.
I think that the Nazi thing is an interesting thing because actually this proves that it's not a left or a right-wing issue.
Because actually, since the assassination of Charlie Kirk and those two attempts on Donald Trump's life, the right has been saying, watch your rhetoric.
And they understand that whilst people aren't calling for violence against them, speaking about them as Nazis is increasing the likeliness of someone thinking, oh my God, there's Nazis.
I better get a gun and do something about it.
So they understand calling for violence, but calling them words starts that dehumanization that leads to violence.
Thank you for proving myself.
It's actually sick what you're saying, dude.
You're saying is that you're calling for people to be arrested for words that you do that make you upset.
That's sick you're.
This is the country of John Locke.
Hang on, this is the country of John Locke.
This is the country that was supposed to.
We adopted our constitution based on these principles of free speech and you know you sick bastards are running around actually calling for the arrest of people because they say mean words.
What the hell is wrong with you?
This is the thing with free speech.
You can still make your point.
You can still make your point.
What is it that you can't say?
It's not my fault that people can't articulate themselves.
Well, you can talk about crime statistics based on gender and sexuality and rates, whatever you want.
Why should a young care worker who's angry because she's been assaulted and is in hospital and is firing off her angry thoughts, while she said she had a head injury and she uses this f word and because of that she ends up with a, a conviction?
Well, hold on Piers.
We only got her side of the story reading the articles.
It says that there was a series of abusive and homophobic messages.
Those were then showed the friend they weren't homophobic.
The friend that she said they weren't homophobic, they weren't aimed at somebody for their sexuality.
But so what if I go up to someone in the street, can I jump in?
Well okay, by comparison, if I use the n word against Right, or if I, if I use the n word against, against Andrew, is that a racist slur against him?
No well, it is no.
So if I go up in the street, and so there has to be some intent.
So if I start going up to someone in the street and screaming Anti-semitic things at them yeah, and then it turns out they're not Jewish, the police aren't going to be like, oh well, but you still.
You, you went to attack someone based on the hang on.
But that's my point, though if you're, you can't be anti-semitic against somebody who's not Jewish.
But but we go back to worse, because the gay slur was made to make him seem like less of a man, to sort of dehumanize, and I think intent does matter.
Mark, you wanted to jump in about the Nazi thing.
What was your observation about that?
I don't think people should be arrested for either, but it just seems to me extraordinary disparity between you could just casually call somebody a Nazi and compare them to Adolf Hitler and there's no accountability.
But if you use the f-word in a private text you get arrested by 11 cops.
Yeah I we're, we're in like seven directions here, so i'm gonna just try and, in like 10 seconds, deal with each one total um.
First, I agree that no one should be arrested for any of this speech.
Let me say that.
So this is not a defense of arresting people, because that keeps being said.
I'm not defending that.
I do think the Nazi piece is different um, but it doesn't mean that it should be responded to differently.
For example, you may say to me Piers uh, because you, because you're policing my speech around, not using the f-word or the n-word or whatever, that you're a fascist I, that would be a reasonable criticism.
I think you'd be wrong, but I think that'd be a reasonable criticism.
But you'd be respond you'd be saying that my behavior is actually similar to that of a particular thing.
When people are looking at Donald Donald Trump's behavior, it's not casual at all.
They're saying the extraordinary uh, and maybe historically unprecedented.
In a way that he is undermining American democracy, is reminiscent of the Nazi regime.
You may disagree to be wrong or right.
You don't honestly think that Donald Trump is a Nazi.
Piers, if you allow me to finish, you'd understand that I'm not saying that.
Just allow me to finish the sentence.
My next sentence was: it does not matter whether you agree or disagree with the claim.
The point is, I'm allowed to have a political ideology.
And I wouldn't make that claim, by the way.
I wouldn't call Donald Trump a Nazi.
But my point is, I believe that.
Is it a slur against Donald Trump?
No.
Wow.
That's my point.
Piers, I'm the one saying no.
So it's not a slur to call somebody.
It's not a slur to call somebody a Nazi, but it is a slur to use the F word about somebody who's not even gay.
Explain that.
No, I can't explain what you just said because that's not the point I'm making.
You've recharacterized what I say.
I'm not sure what the point is, you're making.
What I'm saying, allow me to finish, and you will.
What I'm saying is, if you are making an analysis of somebody and you, in good faith, believe that their behavior, similar to if you call me a fascist, I don't think I'm a fascist, but you have a right to say that, and I wouldn't call that a slur.
If my behavior is reminiscent of that, similar to the Nazi or any other argument that you make, I'm not going to call it a slur just because I disagree with you.
Where it becomes different is if I'm attacking somebody for their identity, where I am insulting somebody for their identity, that becomes a slur.
And in the last example you gave, Piers, where somebody calls somebody the F word or somebody high-fives their friend, as my other colleague said, it gives them a high-five and they're not even gay and they don't mean it that way.
It may not be a slur, but you're still trafficking in homophobia.
You're still trafficking in racism.
Hang on, hang on.
This isn't illogical.
This is actually illogical.
Listen, I'll tell you why.
The reason that this is illogical is.
And then allow me to respond because every time you respond and tell me something, I don't get to respond.
Hang on, I understand.
But the foundation of your argument is these words cause harm based on social stigma, and the social stigma is caused because you're using a harmful word.
Calling people Nazis and fascists would create this exact same stigma that you're saying these other protected classes deserve.
Your argument is a contradiction.
It's P and not P at the same time.
It's contradictory.
So either it's one or the other, Mark, either the social stigma needs to be argued against.
Hang on, hang on.
And in the UK, people are getting arrested for calling Donald Trump a Nazi as much as they get arrested for calling somebody the F slur because the social stigma is the thing that you're after.
So you have to, you have to pick one, dude.
Pick a lane.
All right.
Now allow me to respond.
Again, you have mischaracterized my argument.
My point is not that social stigma is the predicate for deciding whether or not someone can say something or not.
If it were, then you would be right.
All words can have social stigma.
I could call you a conservative.
What is it?
And you could have a social stigma.
You could call it a message.
Then what did I mean?
Allow me to finish that.
Please allow me to finish.
You insisted on being allowed to finish.
Let me do this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know.
I just want the answer, though.
What can it be?
I don't think it's easy to get the answer if you let me talk or if you don't.
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
What I'm saying is, again, if just all words have, all words can potentially have stigma.
If you call me a bleeding heart liberal, I may find that to produce stigma for me.
I'm not saying that stigma alone is the issue.
Stigma is not the predicate for me.
And again, I'm not making the case that anybody should be arrested for any of it because it's so gray and slippery.
I'm saying don't arrest anybody for any of the slang or any of the slurs, any of the language, any of the words that are being used against people.
I'm saying don't arrest anybody for any of it.
But the distinction I'm making here is not one of slur versus or stigma versus non-stigma.
What I'm saying is that as a social, as a community, we can certainly agree that assessing someone's behavior, even if it causes stigma, is okay.
You not liking it isn't enough for me to stop saying it.
What I'm saying is if we as a community decide that, hey, this particular word, this particular framework has historically caused harm to people, not based on what they believe, not based on anything they've done, but based on a particular identity category, I'm saying we can make different decisions.
We may not agree on what the decision is.
That's though, Mark.
That's stigma.
You are making a foundation.
Let me jump in.
I want to get it.
Hang on.
Stigma is not the foundation for my concern.
Stigma is not the sound.
They just don't realize that.
All words can produce.
It's not.
Let me ask Andrew a question.
You don't realize it.
Let me ask Andrew a question.
Just repeatedly shouting it is doesn't change the fact that I'm stipulating that it could all have stigma.
Mark, let me ask you a question of Andrew, which is about free speech, but it's a different twist on it because it's all been very anti-the UK, this debate, as indeed the debates raised in America about our free speech issues, which are legitimate.
I agree.
Mass Firings for One Word00:02:54
But a Reuters report recently said that more than 600 Americans were fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Charlie Kirk's assassination.
That was after a review of court records, public statements, local media reports, and interviews.
Some were dismissed after celebrating or mocking Kirk's death.
15 were punished for allegedly invoking karma or divine justice.
Nine others were disciplined for variance on good riddance.
Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or expressed hope of other Republican figures would be next.
And we just had the president-elect of the Oxford Union in the UK who was sort of de-presidented, removed from his presidency, which was about to take over, because he had reacted in a sort of celebratory way when he heard the news of Charlie Kirk being shot.
Now, in its way, is that not the very kind of censorship that you're talking about?
Or do you think there's a line between accountability to your employers and to police criminal activity?
No, the left has been depersoning and canceling people for, I mean, my whole lifetime.
And it has whipped up into a fervor since Trump's election, but even pre-election.
They don't just deperson you.
They de-bank you.
They de-platform you.
You're not allowed to say anything.
They run massive harassment campaigns.
The first time I've ever seen you poke the bear, poke the bear, poke the bear, they finally did something.
And all that happened was some people lost their jobs.
They weren't depersoned.
They weren't completely ostracized from all of regular society because they said a no-no word.
These were people who were celebrating in the streets a horrific murder, which they likely contributed to through their own rhetoric, right?
That's what actually happened there.
Oh, wait, what's going on?
Hang on, hang on.
All that happened here, right, was for once, the right actually pushed back after you poked us enough time.
So, like, look, am I saying that people should get fired from their jobs?
No, of course not.
But what I am saying is this, is that there's a clear difference between depersoning and de-banking people and ostracizing them from society completely and an employer saying you don't represent my company very well, so you're fired.
Okay.
And that's the distinction.
All right.
Got to leave it there.
I'm going to leave it there, Mark.
I'm sorry.
We're running out of time.
A fascinating debate.
Thank you all very much.
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