Hello and we're

welcome back to the spike podcast I'm Fraser Meyers and with me this week as ever we have

Spikes editor Tom Slater and we're delighted to welcome founder of the

free speech union Toby Young hi we've got plenty to talk about today. We're going to be discussing the Europe-wide crackdown on free speech, the tyranny of the smoking ban, and the, I guess you call it, a woke lunatic who has taken over America's National Public Radio.

So earlier this week the nap conCON event in Brussels was shut down or attempted to be shut down by the police.

The police sort of arrived en masse when Nigel Farage took to the stage.

This wasn't the first attempt to shut it down.

In fact, it was already the third venue the organizers were on

by the time the police arrived under orders from a local mayor.

I mean, Toby, what have you made of this? I mean does this speak to sort of a Europe wide trend?

Well, it does, certainly. I've written in the Spectator this week about how it isn't just in Scotland that there is a legislative

assault on free speech.

There are very similar bills bubbling away in different European countries.

There's one in Ireland.

There's one in Northern Ireland, not yet a bill, but almost a bill will be soon.

There's one in Poland.

In Poland, Donald Tusk's government,

or a member of his government,

wants to amend an existing law to make defamation of members of the LGBTQ community an offense

punishable by three years in prison and it looks like that will sail through.

And of course the worst example is Canada.

Yes, not in Europe, but it isn't just a Europe-wide phenomenon.

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