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Hello, freedom is the word on every politician's lips, the sovereign virtue at the heart of

almost every issue, argument or campaign. Freedom will be the winner in Ukraine, President

Zelenskyy declared at the weekend. It was freedom that was at stake for them and for us,

he said. The upcoming American presidential election is already a slanging match between candidates who say they are for freedoms, their opponents would strip them away.

Here, Brexit was couched in terms of freedom.

The end of COVID regulations actually declared Freedom Day, and our endless culture wars devolve into a conflict between

freedom of expression and freedom from discrimination or offence. The trouble is that freedom

means different, sometimes contradictory things. Philosophers from John Stuart Mill to Isaiah Berlin

have long distinguished between liberty and freedom, freedom from, constraints,

official and otherwise, and freedom too do what you want, or at least are able to do.

Libertarians prize individual freedom above all things, but inequality means some are inevitably

more free than others, and there are those who prefer a notion of collective freedom vested more in security

and well-being. Above all, there's the perennial question of where lines should be drawn. My freedom

to swing my fist stops at your face. That's easy. How far my freedom to say what I like should be

constrained by the impact that it has on others is much more complicated.

Do our ideas of freedom help or hinder resolving our problems and differences?

Deeper question, what does it actually mean for a human to be free?

That's our moral maze, our panel, Anne McHelvoy from the Politico News and Policy website,

Ash Sarka from the Navarra Media Group,

the commentator and campaigner Inaya Filarin Eman, and Carmody Gray, assistant professor

of Catholic theology at Durham University. Thank you.

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