This is not a Mickey Mouse issue, it is serious, just about as serious as can be imagined. Lose it and any sense of living in a free society has gone. We will only be able to say or write what is deemed correct, either by the state authourities or the mobs.The rise of a tyranny is always accompanied by shutting down all protest beginning with writers and orators. Perhaps the most famous example from relatively recent history is the Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn who wrote the famous book: Gulag Archipelago. He experienced the rule of the extreme left, represented by Marxism. In our day political correctness has been described as cultural Marxism. If you are on the wrong side of this movement you will sense your freedom of expression being steadily diminished. In the video linked to this article you will see and hear one of our greatest comic actors Rowan Atkinson taking a pop at our ruling elite.

I never had Rowan Atkinson down as a political campaigner, but what a speech he gave against laws that successive governments have used to close down the rights to oppose, insult, criticise and offend. The legislation to curb these freedoms came into effect in 1986: the Public Order Act. Freedoms which have been used to great effect for centuries in order to change and challenge views, attitudes, injustices and repressive legislation and prick the overblown sensitivities of the pompous and self righteous were threatened by section five of that Act. Atkinson speaks brilliantly and was part of the movement which caused it be changed. However he emphasised the point that winning a victory over the deselection of the words insult / insulting would not be the end of the matter, just the beginning of the fight. The government gave way to this celebrity backed pressure and Section Five was amended. However, nothing further has been accomplished, in fact if anything the legislation has hardened against free speech. Nevertheless you may well enjoy this video.