This country has a great tradition of free speech - we can't throw it away

In a passionate speech in the Lords, the Evening Standard's proprietor argues that Britain's cancel culture is putting freedoms in peril around the world

- Evgeny Lebedev

MY LORDS. My great grandfather Mikhail was a deputy minister in Stalin’s war cabinet — not a role that naturally encourages a man to speak his mind freely.

In fact, my family say he never felt able to speak openly about anything out of fear — the downright terror that afflicted the country where I was born, of being punished just for saying the wrong thing.

That is why this country’s great tradition of free speech has long aroused such admiration in my heart, and around the world.

Ten years ago I told the Leveson Inquiry that a free and independent media was essential for Britain today.

It has been alarming since then to see the erosion of free speech that is taking place here.

It has been appalling to see an author as distinguished as JK Rowling forbidden from speaking at great universities, supposedly bastions of intellectual liberty, because she espouses views about gender that are probably the views of the quiet majority, and that have been held for centuries.

It was shocking that Coutts Bank decided that Nigel Farage was no longer suitable to be a customer, not because he was insolvent, but simply because they did not like his views on Brexit. I am aware that these examples may tempt your lordships to conclude that I am some kind of reactionary, or even a conservative.