'Oh, so that's who Richard Morris is..." Lord Hattersley on The Daily Politics

'An influential activist' - The Guardian

'Iain Dale, without the self loathing' - Matthew Fox in The New Statesman

'
You are a tinker...' - Tim Farron

Thursday 18 August 2011

Sighs. Writes another Louise Mensch post.

Oh dear. Much more of this and I'm going to have to stop following @louisemensch on Twitter. It's not good for your blood pressure.

Her latest missive - ironically posted on the very medium she is attacking - suggests that the Police should only have the power to close down Social Media 'in times of national emergency' and therefore any comparisons to the Arab Spring were 'hysterics' (I imagine she gets reminded often that David Cameron said social media should be as free to use in Tahir Square as in Trafalgar Square - though not presumably ,in the world of Mensch, if the police are kettling students there at the time).

Anyway, may I suggest to Louise that if you were the government of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria et al, and there was a revolution going on the streets, you might choose to interpret this as a 'national emergency' - and turn off social media. And we would say that was wrong and rightly condemn it.

Surely she can see that she is advocating legalising the same thing here. Which is why we cannot allow it to happen.

Addendum

I have sent Louise links to this post of the Chinese Government's endorsement of state control of Social Media in the UK, to see if that has changed her mind. She hasn't replied.

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