ON Thursday evening, I will go to the Louisa Jordan Hospital via Nelson Mandela Place and Rosa Parks Street, and I will take a knee, clap and bang pots and pan together whilst holding a copy of the Bible. I will be dressed mostly in sackcloth and ashes and a rainbow scarf, with ribbons of all colours and button badges pinned to my lapel.
I will do all this as testament to the free society in which we live, one where with no sense of irony, I accept that the Government can have guidelines to restrict my movements and in which my every movement and transaction is recorded. Welcome to virtue signalling – the new opiate of the masses.
John Dunlop, Ayr.
Bill is badly drafted
IT has been a growing practice of some people who do not like an opinion, to attach to it a derogatory label. I see Tim Hopkins (Letters, June 3) is a practitioner. I have been criticised many times for what I have written over a 60-year political life, but never before been accused of “scaremongering.”
The Hate Crime Bill does, as he says, involve consolidation of the law, but does not stop there. In what he describes as its other half, it casts the net of criminal liability much wider: extending the list of protected persons, introducing the concept of aggravation by prejudice, lengthening the collection of stirring-up offences, and brings in a possession offence for having material communicated to another – the latter two carrying a potential seven-year prison sentence. Mr Hopkins may regard these as simply a rational extensions to hate crime law, but he should understand that others see them as a direct threat to free speech. The pre-drafting consultation showed, Para. 161 of the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum, that while pressure groups like his backed the stirring-up proposals, a large majority who were individuals, opposed it.
This bill is badly drafted: its authors clearly do not understand that legislation seeking to define offensive language, and offensive conduct by using language, must balance its intentions against what is a pillar of a free, liberal, society, our right to free speech. To maintain that right, legislators must always make a presumption in favour of free speech as paramount. I doubt if that principle crossed their minds with this bill.
Jim Sillars, Edinburgh EH9.
Israel’s aid to Gaza
GM Service (Letters, June 5), writing on the Palestine question, mentions the League of Nations Homeland declaration in 1922. He should take note that on May 25, 1923, the British recognised Transjordan’s independence over 77 per cent of Palestine – an area that was in fact destined under the Balfour Declaration to be a part of the Jewish Homeland.
Mr Service should also be aware that during the seven days from May 16 to May 23, Israel transferred 2,288 truckloads of goods into Gaza: 139 tons of medical supplies; 150 tanks of fuels; 224 tons of agricultural products; 11,339 tons of food; 35,304 tons of building material; 18,777 tons of miscellaneous goods – a total of 65,783 tons.
And this was a fairly typical week.
During the same period, Gaza did not receive any assistance from Egypt and probably none from the UK.
Sammy Stein, Glasgow G41.
Guilty as charged
YOUR photograph of the crowd round the last green at the 1964 Open Golf Championship ("Those were the days: 'Champagne Tony' wins the 1964 Open at St Andrews", The Herald, June 6) stirred the memory.
As a teenager, I and my late brother John were employed as crowd control stewards for the week. We were fitted with long white coats to provide the necessary authority. The key instruction of the week was to stop the traditional stampede up the last. I have to admit that rather than stopping the stampede, we actually led it. This was not appreciated by the chief steward.
We are both visible in this photograph. I wonder if this evidence explains the lack of any invitation to be considered as a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
Frank Dunn, Lenzie.
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