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24 October 2025 / Charles Wynn-Evans
Issue: 8136 / Categories: Features , Human rights
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Book review: On the Law of Speaking Freely

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"This book displays an admirably succinct mastery of its inherently controversial subject matter"
  • Author: Professor Adam Tomkins
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781509972104
  • RRP: £24.99

Free speech is undoubtedly one of the most important and controversial issues of our time. ‘Cancel culture,’ the gender-critical/realist debate, the definition of Islamophobia, prosecutorial decisions in relation to the Public Order Act 1986 offences concerning threatening or abusive behaviour and harassment, alarm, or distress, and the scope and application of the Online Safety Act 2023—these all, in different ways, bring into sharp focus the controversies that arise in relation to free speech, whether in the context of online safety, media regulation, educational environments, or the workplace.

The controversy, and on occasion toxicity, that can accompany discussion of free speech cries out for a detailed analytical assessment of the legal aspects of the issue. This new work by Professor Adam Tomkins, John Millar Chair of Public Law at the University of Glasgow, rises impressively to this challenge, adroitly and fluently placing free speech in its historical, philosophical, political, constitutional, and legal contexts.

Cogent

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