Political Correctness and Freedom of Expression

The Labour Government in 2003 passed an innocent sounding piece of legislation called the Communications Act. In it is a pernicious section making it a criminal offence to send offensive or indecent messages. Apparently this covers sending what are clearly joke messages over Twitter for pity's sake. The legislation, unlike Acts of Parliament of the early twentieth century, will have been poorly written - what after all does 'offensive or indecent' mean? It can be so widely interpreted that it could cover everything or nothing depending entirely on your point of view. The police will have interpreted the wording as covering anything as they are probably obliged to do but who would have thought a judge worthy of his or her salt could fail to distinguish between a joke and a threat. Is this because like in practically every other sphere (Susi Leather of the Charity Commission springs to mind) the Labour Government appointed only Labour apparatchiks were to the bench despite being entirely the wrong person for the job? The Labour Government we know thoroughly enjoyed making all sorts of things criminal offences - the figure of 3000 new offences springs to mind. We also know that many of these offences are of the type to be tried by a judge alone. The exclusion of trial by jury  is another example of the vandalism committed on our precious constitution by the Blair/Brown years. It is extremely doubtful that a jury would have found Paul Chambers guilty of any criminal offence for his message about blowing up Robin Hood airport, they would have had too much common sense. It is also extremely doubtful that if the case against Gareth Compton for his message about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown were to be tried by a jury he would be found guilty of any offence. What he said was clearly a joke. Freedom of expression is being crushed by political correctness and the Coalition should bring in legislation to abolish the stupid new criminal offences introduced by Labour and to ensure that trial by jury is enhanced not reduced. When considering these two cases it brings to mind the restrictions imposed on Aung San Suu Kyi for being released from house arrest. Ms Kyi will have to walk on eggshells to stay free which means she will have to talk in code. We should not have to do the same thing here.