Trigger Warning

Concise and Abridged Edition
In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can’t-Say-That.

In a fierce defence of free speech – in all its forms – Mick Hume’s blistering polemic exposes the new threats facing us today in the historic fight for freedom of expression. In 2015, the cold-blooded attacks in Paris on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists united the free-thinking world in proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’. But it wasn’t long before many were arguing that the massacres showed the need to restrict the right to be offensive. Meanwhile sensitive students are sheltered from potentially offensive material and Twitter vigilantes police those expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion. But the basic right being supressed – to be offensive, despite the problems it creates – is not only acceptable but vital to society. Without a total freedom of expression, other liberties will not be possible.

Reviews

‘Superb…This is a first-rate polemic and the most important political book of the year so far’ Rod Liddle

‘This is an important book, and couldn’t be more timely. It’s strong-minded, unafraid, determined to knock down all the various specious arguments against free speech, unapologetic about insisting on the value of free expression, and terrifically well argued. In these weak-minded times it’s good to have so uncompromising a defence’ Salman Rushdie

‘What this book does tremendously is pull off the neat trick of summing up just what the hell is going on out there on the great frontiers of speech, offence, liberty and people shouting at each other’ The Times

About the author

Mick Hume is a journalist and author. He is editor-at-large of Spiked and writes regularly on free-speech issues. He had a weekly column in ‘The Times’ for 10 years, and was described as ‘Britain’s only libertarian Marxist newspaper columnist’. More recently he has written in defence of freedom of speech and a free press in ‘The Times’, the ‘Sunday Times’, the ‘Independent’ and the ‘Sun’.