My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyremained at our disposition and I gladly pay tribute to the Conservative majoritycontrolling Kensington Town Hall for their unique distinction of standing for freespeech. The right to speak in the hall was perhaps preserved as a showpiece, to provethat free speech still existed in Britain. Needless to say, despite plenty of threats andmenaces of disorder, it was perfectly easy to maintain order in that building and therewas never serious disorder at my indoor meetings.In terms of pre-war politics we have since then been completely denied free speech atboth indoor and outdoor meetings. Yet in any realistic appraisal of the situation itmust be admitted that by the time Government action had brought our meetings to anend, this medium had become obsolete as a means of public expression. The arrival oftelevision for all practical purposes brought the era of public meetings to an end. Ontelevision the people can see their men close up and judge them acutely; it is moreinteresting than seeing a man at the distance of the platform, and their view is fromthe comfort of their own fireside. The advantage to the politician is that he canaddress as many people in one night as in several years of public meetings; themedium of the platform has become obsolete. The old parties once again shot behindthe bird when they suppressed our right to public meetings.Television poses a new question in the matter of free speech. If a denial of televisiontime is added to the suppression of public meetings, free speech has ceased to exist. Inany case, if television becomes the only effective medium, the question of free speecharises acutely if the established parties alone have access to it, and fix the wholematter among themselves. How can the newcomer, who once relied on the publicmeeting, ever bring his policies or his party to the notice of the public at all? Thisquestion must be answered by government if free speech is to continue in any realterms.Government and televison authority often reply to enquiries for television time thatthe subject or person in question is not of public interest. Happily or unhappily, it isimpossible for this reply to be made in my case, as I have been made the subject ofvery frequent discussion on BBC programmes. In fact, I am in the peculiar situationthat anyone may discuss me on the BBC except myself. I have been the subject offrequent comment and attack, but so far have always been denied the right to reply.As a result of some of these attacks, I brought a libel action against the BBC. Theattacks continued even after the action had begun, so on February 16, 1966, I appliedto the High Court for their committal for contempt of court, alleging that not onlywere libellous things said in a broadcast, but in the preliminary advertisement inRadio Times, with a circulation of 4,000,000, a photograph of me was shown and alibellous statement was attached. Lord Chief Justice Parker in his judgment, with theconcurrence of Mr. Justice Sachs and Mr. Justice Widgery, made the followingobservations: 'May I say at once that for my part I have very considerable sympathywith this applicant. Here is a vast organisation which has the ear of the whole publicwho can, within the law of libel, give free expression to their views, and yet the objectof those views is wholly incapable of presenting his case in the same form of medium.It is perfectly clear that the respondents will not have him on their programme. I amnot criticising them for that, but it does disclose a curious system whereby someonewho has the ear of the whole nation can say things and the unfortunate subject has nomeans of answering back in the same medium.'384 of 424