Freedom of speech in the UK?????

ronib

Growstuff read on …. Organised on behalf of the Ministry of Defence

I know. I assume you know what the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is and how it's funded.

It's being advertised as the 25th Chemical Weapons Demilitarisation Conference. The Dstl is the hands-on organiser.

It isn't a government or even a MoD propaganda event. One of its aims is to"discover and offer fresh thinking, new ideas, and different approaches". Nobody is going to do that if all they hear is views from within a bubble.

Don't patronise me! I'm not your "dear"!!!!

If you dont want to leave yourself open to being patronised then read all the postings (including the ones which mentioned speakers being dis-invited to unis) rather than just the one you wanted to troll.

Growstuff read on …. Organised on behalf of the Ministry of Defence

ronib

Growstuff yes I think 8 speakers have been prevented from speaking at the MoD conference.
I am inclined to think that the new rules, introduced by Jacob Rees Mogg? , may be poorly drafted and badly applied. I think K upticked a comment about Liz Truss and the lettuce.
I don’t know what else K said.

It's not actually advertised as a government or MoD conference.

www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/Register+for+2023+Chemical+Weapons+Demilitarisation+Conference+30012023102000?open

biglouis

@growstuff

The title of the thread was Free Speech so try reading my posting a little more carefully my dear!

Don't patronise me! I'm not your "dear"!!!!

Growstuff yes I think 8 speakers have been prevented from speaking at the MoD conference.
I am inclined to think that the new rules, introduced by Jacob Rees Mogg? , may be poorly drafted and badly applied. I think K upticked a comment about Liz Truss and the lettuce.
I don’t know what else K said.

@growstuff

The title of the thread was Free Speech so try reading my posting a little more carefully my dear!

biglouis

Well look at some of the speakers who have been heckled/uninvited/cancelled from universities by the woke/PC brigade. Im glad I no longer work in the corporate world or accademia any more. I heard of someone being disciplined for being "insufficiently anti racist". What the hell does that mean?

How is that relevant?

ronib

Why would any government offer a platform to speakers who might speak against that government in a public setting?
Those speakers will find other ways of expressing themselves. They have not been silenced. In fact K has just increased his message spread and profile.

In what way would he have been likely to speak against the government? What could he have said?

Have all the international delegates been vetted? I expect most of them are too busy to spend time criticising the UK government in public. Who knows what they think in private? If they really are undercover agents working against the UK government, I'm sure they'd be far too savvy to express themselves in public.

This smacks of paranoia.

Well look at some of the speakers who have been heckled/uninvited/cancelled from universities by the woke/PC brigade. Im glad I no longer work in the corporate world or accademia any more. I heard of someone being disciplined for being "insufficiently anti racist". What the hell does that mean?

Kaszeta isn't involved with producing chemical weapons, but in defence against them. I'm struggling to understand how his aims could be any different from the UK government's aims.

Why would any government offer a platform to speakers who might speak against that government in a public setting?
Those speakers will find other ways of expressing themselves. They have not been silenced. In fact K has just increased his message spread and profile.

My mistake. Kaszeta isn't a scientist, but a political scientist.

Did you actually read Kaszeta's article, ronib?

ronib

Z holds dual nationality American and British in the interests of accuracy

So what? He would have been speaking as a scientist. There are international speakers - many without even dual nationality.

This wasn't about working on any sensitive information. It was about speaking at a conference attended by international delegates.

Kaszeta is free to publish anything he has discovered about chemical weapons anywhere he wants.

Kaszeta …. K not Z

Z holds dual nationality American and British in the interests of accuracy

Government policy since last year (introduced under the Johnson regime IIRC)

From the cancellation letter to Dan Kaszeta

Rules introduced by the Cabinet Office in 2022 specify that the social media accounts of potential speakers must be vetted before final acceptance to the programme. This is to check whether these people have ever criticsed government officials or government policy. The vetting process is impartial and purely evidence-based. The check on your social media has identified material that criticises government officials and policy.

ronib

MaizieD Nope… you have misunderstood. Kaszeta needs to be much more aware about security vetting processes.
Nothing to do with being a Tory or not.
I am surprised that a scientist of his calibre would not understand in better detail the hoops you need to jump through to work on the most sensitive areas of defence.
The fact that Z is a foreign national who posts vaguely anti government tweets is not in his favour.

Who's Z?

The conference is taking place in London, not Wiltshire, anyway.

MaizieD Nope… you have misunderstood. Kaszeta needs to be much more aware about security vetting processes.
Nothing to do with being a Tory or not.
I am surprised that a scientist of his calibre would not understand in better detail the hoops you need to jump through to work on the most sensitive areas of defence.
The fact that Z is a foreign national who posts vaguely anti government tweets is not in his favour.

MaizieD

ronib

Next time spend even longer…MaizieD
Exactly what are you talking about? Kaszeta ? What exactly are you saying?

I think your comment about McCarthyite is outrageous.

I know you do.

But I think your comments about a respected chemical weapons expert being a possible security risk because he isn't a tory and has mildly criticised the government are even more outrageous.

Oh, and is he suspect because he's 'foreign', too?

You should listen to yourself.

Many of the speakers at the conference are foreign. Kaszeta is a British citizen.

ronib

NotSpaghetti well I think it’s pretty daft to be so clueless about Porton Down of all places!! I can’t believe what I am reading.

Who's clueless about Porton Down?

It's a conference held on their premises for international participants. I don't suppose it includes a guided tour of sensitive material. By the way, Porton Down doesn't just handle chemical weapons.

DstL is a scientific lab and is supposed to be politically neutral. If any of the speakers were to say something that didn't fit the government's agenda (and I don't even know if that's true in this case), they would be speaking in their capacity as scientists not propagandists for government policy.

ronib

The article- last paragraph - it’s the Ministry of Defence…. Not the Conservative Party? How very confusing.

When I last checked, the Ministry of Defence was part of the UK government machinery. And which party is running (or pretending to run) the government at the moment?