Andrew Doyle takes aim at SNP

So David Tennant does bit of Shakespeare, says some canonical lines, a 'non-binary' blue-haired baby from Glasgow Uni gets upset about the perceived transblasphemy, and Tennant has to be investigated by the Police?

Or Olivia Coleman plays Portia in a RSC touring production in Edinburgh and a cross-dresser gets triggered and rings the polis ...

If this goes through it will kill art in Scotland.

Words of wisdom from General Secretary of the Police Federation.

An entire section about ‘public performance of a play’.
That is chilling.
They must be so ignorant about the history of art to not see what this means.

It's not going to replace blasphemy though is it? It just re-frames and expands blasphemy as something in the eye of the beholder, and invents transblasphemy.

This is truly dreadful. I find it almost unbelievable that creating laws ,which amongst other things, are invested in controlling what theatre and playwrights might say are a priority and a goal for a political party. It's very chilling.

Great post Scrimpshaw.

From Wings over Scotland-

SUPPORTIVE OF THE BILL AS DRAFTED

The Scottish Government

(We have been genuinely unable to find any public submissions in favour of the bill. Please let us know of any we’ve missed.)

[EDIT 9.20pm:an alert reader notifies us that Humza Yousaf hasdiscovered and is loudly hyping up a group that supports the bill. Impressively it’s an independent organisation that isn’t totally dependent on Scottish Government funding for its existence and oh wait no our mistake.]

[quote howonearthdidwegethere]@SerenityNowwwww The SNP Government is behind this bill.

The SNP have illiberal, authoritarian instincts and for the life of me I cannot work out why more people have not clocked this to date.[/quote]
But who is pulling the strings? Where does the money trail run back to (because it’s always there isn’t it??).

• thanks for clarification, Dido, that's helpful. That list is copied from Wingsoverscotland. I wouldn't even have the first clue!

As I understand it, it'll be fairly irrelevant what anyone says. It seems to me to completely open up the possibility of anything being taken as 'hate speech' because the definition rests on the perception of the person with a protected characteristic.

Not a lawyer, but it's this that really worries me.

As for background - I think it was decided after Lord Barcadale's investigation into hate laws that various laws needed updating (part of the new bill is to remove the existing law on blasphemy, which hasn't been used in about 150 years, afaik).

www.gov.scot/publications/independent-review-hate-crime-legislation-scotland-final-report/

@SerenityNowwwww The SNP Government is behind this bill.

The SNP have illiberal, authoritarian instincts and for the life of me I cannot work out why more people have not clocked this to date.

That’s just bad law.

The Faculty Of Advocates (trade body of Scotland’s most senior lawyers

Er, no. That is not what the Faculty of Advocates is.

"Advocate" is the Scottish word for barrister. Advocates are legally qualified people who chose to go to the Bar, meaning their work will be court based. Advocates used to have exclusive rights to appear in the 2 highest courts (The High Court for serious crimes and the Court of Session for major civil matters) Solicitors had and have equal rights of appearance in all other courts, including the Sheriff Courts. Solicitors can now apply to be Solicitor Advocates and appear in the higher courts.

The regulatory body for solicitors is The Law Society of Scotland. The The Faculty of Advocates is the bodywhich regulates advocates.

It is absolutely not the case that the Faculty of Advocates is "the trade body of Scotland's most senior lawyers". Like the Law Society its members will range from wet behind the ears newly qualified to practitioners of decades of experience.

Both non-binary and cross dressing are included under transgender identity in the proposed Bill...so an essentially meaningless identity with no basis in science or law would be protected as would AGP fetishists - and anyone with anything "insulting" (a term strongly pushed to be included in the Bill by LGBT Youth Scotland, Stonewall etc) or "hateful" to say about that would be facing a possible 7 year jail term. Oh and there's no need to prove "intent".

SG are a fucking joke...all be it a very dangerous one...

Since women are not included in protected group, it seems misogynistic hate is not covered. As for 'variations in sex characteristics' what does that mean?

I read this as the variations of sex characteristics such as women having penises, men who can chestfeed etc.

I haven’t waded through it , but what impact will it have on online stuff? The Feminism board here is already strait-jacketed to appease the woke brigade. Will Justine et al have to go even further in case something someone seems offensive is posted or read in Scotland ?

The Edinburgh Fringe festival may never be the same again.

It is terrifying indeed. And most people are either utterly unaware of the existence of this bill (covid is a bit distracting) or seem to think that any opposition to it is RIGhTWiNgDogWHiStle from horrible bigotty people. I expect that's because any vaguely left-of-centre media is tiptoeing around the issue if reporting on it at all.

I very much hope that it is booted far, far away. One would have thought that the long list of organisations opposing it -

(Taken from wingsoverscotland.com/the-cabaret-voltaire/):

The Scottish Police Federation (representing rank-and-file officers)

The Law Society Of Scotland

The Faculty Of Advocates (trade body of Scotland’s most senior lawyers)

Scottish PEN (authors’ free-speech advocacy group)

The Free Speech Union

Free To Disagree (free speech advocacy group)

The Catholic Church

The Free Church Of Scotland

The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches

The Orange Order

Call It Out (Irish/Catholic pressure group)

The Christian Institute

The National Secular Society

Humanist Society Scotland

Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (feminist policy thinktank)

Woman’s Place UK (feminist group)

ForWomen.Scot (feminist group)

LGB Alliance (lesbian, gay and bisexual rights group)

The Scottish Newspaper Society

The News Media Association

The Society Of Editors

Andrew Tickell (SNP member, law lecturer and columnist for The National)

Stephen Daisley (columnist for the Daily Mail)

Andrew Tettenborn (Chair in Law, Swansea University)

Academics For Academic Freedom

Jim Sillars (former SNP deputy leader)

(We should also note for completeness the opposition of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives, though as they reflexively oppose pretty much everything the Scottish Government does that carries rather less noteworthiness.)

• would demonstrate the wide-ranging opposition and madness of the bill as proposed.

But if everything goes very, very quiet in Scotland all of a sudden, I suppose you can presume anyone who has ever used any triggering dogwhistle kind of speech (that is to say, anyone at all that says anything at all) has been bagged, kidnapped and whisked off to a gulag on the Hebrides.

Maybe we could work on some kind of distress signal?

Yes because censoring plays is always the start of a wonderful open society and not in any way facist at all.

The SNP are beyond parody now, looking at their actions in any historical context from any culture and this is actually pretty terrifying.

This could mean for example raids on bookshops if it had been in force when The Satanic Verses was published. In fact given the level of outrage from certain parts of the Muslim community at that time the police would have had to take action.

I had to evacuate a library after bomb threats over Satanic Verses. I would have staffed that library single handed rather than remove it. I just can't believe the turn the West has taken and the lack of outrage about the loss of one of the foundation stones of freedom.

I think they've said they'll consider adding misogyny later - always jam tomorrow for women.