I sat down this week with a group of American students over here on a field trip, checking out Europe’s relations with the US. The starting point for their examination was vice-president JD Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference in February, during which he harangued, lectured, belittled and abused Europe’s defence and military elites, famously, and nonsensically, suggesting that our biggest risk was not Vladimir Putin’s bombs, bullets and hybrid war disruption and propaganda, but our failure to protect free speech.
I gave a fairly detailed analysis of the potential risks to global security created by this strange Trumpian view that allies should be undermined, while traditional enemies like Putin are pandered to. In the discussion that followed, around half of the points that came back at me related to free speech. These were highly intelligent people, in their late teens and early 20s, some of whom had completely bought into the idea that ours was a country in which saying what you thought risked landing you in serious trouble.
In the main, they do not read newspapers, nor watch mainstream TV channels. They pointed to podcasts and social media as the places where they got their news. But their sense that the UK has a free speech problem suggests to me there has been a pretty well-funded and well-organised campaign spreading this myth as reality.
There is something especially annoying that it is Vance who spearheads it all, though I guess Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s legal fees funder Elon Musk has played a significant role too. Vance, remember, is the one who has been doing his best to ensure that anyone who issued critical comments about Charlie Kirk following his assassination should variously be sacked, kicked out of college, or refused a visa for the US.
The same Vance who has responded to leaked exchanges from a Young Republican group chat, dripping in Hitler-worshipping racism, antisemitism, homophobia and hate, by urging us all to stop “clutching pearls” and understand these “edgy, offensive jokes” are just part of growing up. “Kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” smirked the great Christian.
“Young boys” was straight out of the Trump gaslighting manual. The group included men in their 20s and 30s who hold official positions at local, state and federal level. This is the next generation, presumably after Vance, of Republican leaders.
So spout pro-Hitler stuff, and your free speech is safe. But dare to criticise one of their own, dare to be anything other than a slavish supporter of Trump, then newspapers, prepare to be sued; broadcasters, prepare to have your licences reviewed; judges who rule against, watch out for your home being burned down; Pentagon reporters, prepare to lose your credentials; former officials, prepare to face trumped-up charges about mortgage applications or the handling of sensitive documents; and Joe Public, prepare to have the MAGA crowd unleashed upon you online.
What I gleaned from the US students is that free speech is no longer a constitutional principle, it is just one more polarising tactic in the post-truth world in which Trump has always been happy to thrive, and into which what was once Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy soul has made a deeply disturbing journey… if I may say so.
Especially now that Donald Trump is Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s new best friend – I mean what the hell was he doing at the Gaza peace deal conference in Egypt? – we can be sure that next year’s World Cup in the US will all be about Trump Trump Trump, and money money money. Check out the ticket prices if you have time, then take out a mortgage.
Of course football plays a big part in the lives of billions of people, and the Premier League is a gigantic global brand and a big contributor to our soft power which, post Brexit, we need more than ever.
But there is another sport whose economic and soft power assets perhaps don’t get the attention they deserve… cricket. Here are two quiz questions for you, courtesy of a very enjoyable lunch with Richard Thompson, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board.
What sporting event in the US attracted the biggest global TV audience last year? And what sporting event in Australia recently sold out bigger and faster than Taylor Swift?
Answer to Q1: No, not the Super Bowl. It was the Cricket World Cup clash in New York City, between India and Pakistan. Almost 400 million tuned in, dwarfing the Super Bowl’s 190 million. The passion for cricket in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is such that there is a growing concern about the shortage of willow trees, the wood from which bats are made.
Answer to Q2: the upcoming Ashes series between England and Australia… 220,000 tickets sold in one day, more than any single day sales for TayTay. Get this… there are five five-day Tests and every single one of the 25 days is now completely sold out. Taylor Swift sold 600,000 tickets on the Australian leg of her tour – the Ashes will top that.
Most of us will be following on TV, or via the peerless Test Match Special on BBC radio. But – so far – 62,000 people are booked to travel from England to Australia for the tour. I doubt very much that as many England football fans will be heading to the States for the World Cup. Scotland, on the other hand!!
Tim Smit, creator of the brilliant Eden Project, was sitting alongside me on a panel at the Blue Earth Summit, chaired by 23-year-old Debra Nelson. I was there to promote the work of the Lost Boys Taskforce, which is trying to get government and public to focus on the importance of every teenage boy having a Trusted Adult outside the family. Tim was also keen to talk about how we address inter-generational inequality.
Asked by Debra for our closing words of wisdom, I urged anyone who was not already a Trusted Adult to someone other than their children to become one. Tim, at 71 three years older than me, had a message more directly aimed at our generation. “To all older people, I say: STOP BEING OLD.”
He did not mean take anti-ageing pills. He meant whatever your age, stay curious, surround yourself with young people, stop moaning, stop thinking “everything was better in our day” and do more to help the next generation. Brilliant.
Celebrity Traitors can be added to the long list of reality TV shows in which I have been invited to appear, but declined. And I confess that I have never watched it. However, I understand it was as a result of one of the contestants letting out an accidental fart that Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell decided to do an hour-long phone-in on farting.
There was a serious angle to it, related to diet and disease, such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, a condition which I had for several years and which thankfully has been banished. But there were also a lot of laughs, farting being a subject which, as Nicky said, reduces us all to nine-year-olds.
It was hugely educational. Women fart more than men, revealed Stefan Gates, the author of Fartology. Dogs fart more than cats. The fartiest fish is the humble herring. The Portuguese man o’ war doesn’t have an anus.
I listened while driving north for a day out in Doncaster with Labour MP Ed Miliband, ahead of Burnley’s 2-0 win in the big game against Leeds. The time sped by. Worth the licence fee for that hour alone.
