JasonMosler.com

I'm a big fan of "That Mitchell and Webb look". So i was very pleased to see David Mitchell speak out against the suppression of free speach. Good job David.

Apparently, my history teacher was wrong and Voltaire never actually said: "I despise what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." As quotations go, it's only GCSE clever – an interesting juxtaposition for young teens, a notch above "'Assume' makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." If you're still quoting it at A-level, that's OK but you won't win any prizes. In an undergraduate essay, it should get no more credit than "Too many cooks spoil the broth" or "At the start of the war, few of the combatants knew how it was going to end."

While it's an important sentiment, it should also, in a mature, free country, be an obvious one. It's not complicated – it's a truism, not a paradox. Having accepted it as a premise of our society, we should be talking about more contentious things – whether the pause that electronic equipment now makes between our pressing a button and its obeying is the first step towards Matrix-style insurrection, or how many episodes of Top Gear you can enjoy before your soul is forfeit.

So why, when the small bunch of extremists, bigots and opportunists that is Islam4UK announced that they wanted to stage a demonstration in Wootton Bassett, did the home secretary say he would support attempts to ban it? They're a horrible organisation – an offshoot of the al-Muhajiroun movement that is opposed to the British state and arranged, on the first anniversary of 9/11, a conference entitled "A Towering Day in History" (although a pun is always welcome). I can understand completely why Alan Johnson despises what they say, and I agree, but I'm not certain that outlawing their demonstration qualifies as defending to the death their right to say it.

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