The Edition: Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act is fraught with danger
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2024
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
First up: Scotland is smothering free speech.
Scotland is getting a new, modern blasphemy code in the form of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which takes effect from 1 April. The offence of ‘stirring up racial hatred’ will be extended to disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. The new law gives few assurances for protecting freedom of speech writes Lucy Hunter Blackburn, former senior Scottish civil servant. Lucy joins the podcast, alongside Baroness Claire Fox, unaffiliated peer and founder of the Academy of Ideas think tank. (03:18)
Then: William and Gus discuss some of their favourite pieces from the magazine this week, including Sam McPhail’s history of ‘Total Football’ and Richard Madeley’s diary.
Next: Journalist Gavin Mortimer writes about Jordan Bardella for The Spectator. He is Marine Le Pen’s number two in the National Rally party and the man Gavin says could be France’s next PM. Gavin is joined by Telegraph contributor Anne-Elisabeth Moutet to ask: who is Jordan Bardella? (28:22)
And finally: why do directors feel the need to ‘correct’ Shakespeare? That’s the question that Lloyd Evans asks in the magazine this week. He says that directors should go back to basics when it comes to adapting the bard and leave the gimmicks to one side. Yael Farber – who is currently directing King Lear at the Almeida Theatre and has previously adapted Macbeth and Julius Caesar – joins the podcast to discuss. (41:25)
Hosted by William Moore and Gus Carter.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. |
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| 0:15.9 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:30.3 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, |
| 0:33.7 | where each week we shed a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed. |
| 0:38.5 | I'm William Moore, the Spectator's features editor.. I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor. And I'm Gus Carter, the Spectator's Deputy Features Editor. |
| 0:42.7 | This week we're going to be discussing Scotland's new hate crime bill, profiling the man |
| 0:46.6 | who could be France's next Prime Minister, and asking whether directors should meddle with Shakespeare. |
| 0:57.6 | So, Will, we're speaking on Thursday lunchtime. |
| 1:01.0 | The magazine went to press yesterday. |
| 1:03.5 | Our cover line is, war on words, is Scotland ready for its new hate crime law? |
| 1:09.0 | Can you talk us through how this idea came about? Well, on April 1st, |
| 1:13.2 | April Fool's Day in Scotland, the Hate Crime and Public Order Act comes into effect. And what that |
| 1:19.7 | means is that the offence of stirring up racial hatred is going to be extended to include disability, |
| 1:26.3 | religion, sexual orientation and other |
| 1:28.9 | characteristics. And the new law doesn't give many assurances at all for protecting free speech, |
| 1:35.1 | which is something that our editor Fraser, obviously, as a Scotsman himself, is very passionate |
| 1:41.2 | about. As a member of the Scottish Mafia, he's very |
| 1:44.3 | passionate about this. And we asked Lucy Hunter Blackburn to write about it because she's a former |
| 1:49.5 | senior member of the Scottish Civil Service. So it's very well placed to criticise where this act |
| 1:56.6 | has gone wrong. And it felt a particularly good week to do it now, not just because obviously |
... |
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