‘Sadly, you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home,’ said Human Rights Commission President, Gillian Triggs, back in 2017.

Australia cringed.

Free speech has long been an endangered species, except bureaucrats don’t hold up public works programs to protect it as they do for rare spotted tree frogs. They would much rather pour cement straight over and bury the antiquated idea of liberty. Give it a swift burial, they laugh to themselves, and make room for the invasive species of political correctness.

John Roskam wrote in reply to the original comment, ‘There’s an ever-growing number of organisations attempting to determine people’s opinions. Institutions that once provided a refuge from politics are now a hotbed of it.’

He was talking about sport, but I want to discuss the bewildering news out of London. Labour wants to make itself even more unpopular by nannying overheard conversations at the pub.

Imagine Keir Starmer, the farmer harmer, leering over a pint with his ear twitching.

What greater Western institution is there than the local pub? Even for those who do not drink, it is still a significant cultural melting pot and pressure release for a slavish and increasingly poor workforce.

British pub culture is thousands of years old. What did the Romans ever do for us? Well, they gave us pub culture. They built the roads. Built the towns. And stuck tabernae in them. The ancient Brits weren’t fond of Roman wine, so they quickly switched it out for beer. The rest is history.

Historic UK notes that taking someone ‘down a peg or two’ relates to King Edgar (959-975) in his (failed) attempt to moderate enthusiastic pub culture.

If someone needs to be taken down a peg, it’s the censorious class of public officials who have decided to expand their war on speech by turning bar staff into living, breathing ‘wrong think’ police. As usual, it is being done in the name of safety.

We are led to believe that these creatures who fill our pints are so fragile that they might shatter if they hear something critical about gender theory or the weather, but at the same time powerful enough to chuck miscreant speech pirates onto the street. People are going to act as if they are living under Stalinist rule, frightened to speak in case someone reports them. Next thing you know, there will be a government inquiry into declining mental health and a rise in paranoia.

Originally designed to protect workers from outright harassment, the deliberately vague language holds open the door to ‘offensive conversations’ being within its scope. The government that jails people over mean tweets is busy creating a lawyers’ paradise. At least it is on brand. Keir Starmer never promised to champion freedom.

‘I have a little theory that every pub is a Parliament,’ said Reform MP Nigel Farage.

‘I’ve so often been in a pub debate where I’ve had an opinion and someone says: “Hang on a second, have you looked at it like this?” And you actually can be turned around in a pub over a drink by the power of debate. And I think it’s pretty fair in pubs for virtually everything, within reason, to be up for debate. However, the new employment rights legislation, which is designed to protect employees, says that debates should not happen in pubs if they’re offensive to staff.’

Forget about the argument surrounding ‘harm’ and ‘offense’ in a work environment and appreciate instead that this is the same UK Labour government that released thousands of dangerous criminals onto the street early, many of whom started attacking citizens. It is also the same government that sits back and watches hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants pour into the country. The same government that has no answer to London turning into the knife capital of the Western world. The same government wading through a Pakistani rape gang scandal and industrial levels of corruption and failure within its critical institutions.

Why is censoring pub talk on the ‘to do list’?

Uncomfortable chit-chat is exactly what society needs. There are a number of substantial social problems that require discussion among ordinary people, not the halls of privilege and power.

As Nigel Farage hints, pub talk has an impact on politics and the last thing a nervous and weak government wants is thousands of tiny pubs full of millions of voters reaching an anti-government position on their favourite topics.

Cutting people off from their social groups, or sanitising their conversations and thoughts is the behaviour of a dangerous political structure.

Whether it is being done to gift the Trade Unions an ungodly amount of petty control, or because politicians are worried … we can only guess.

The heart of Western Civilisation has developed grave side effects from the ‘safe and effective’ application of political correctness.

It has become a nation that prioritises the criminalisation of hurt feelings over the physical and economic safety of its citizens.

Deviant behaviours are protected, while valid criticism can only be whispered in case someone is listening.

The political crackdown on freedom in the name of safety is making life in the civilised world increasingly dangerous.

I will leave you with the words of Patrick Christys on GB News who said it best:

‘We’re going to end up in a situation where a bloke in his 70s who has been drinking five pints a night in the same pub for 40 years cracks a joke about his wife’s driving and some 20-year-old with bright blue hair and a Just Stop Oil vest kicks him out and bars him for life. What is it about people on the Left banning free speech?’