Tom Slater

Have you heard the one about the students who said clapping could cause anxiety? Or the students who banned sombreros? Of course you have. You can’t move these days for tales of Britain’s blue-haired belligerents and their campus war on free speech, ‘fascist’ tabloids and fancy dress. Student leaders have become a national embarrassment – and with good reason. They’ve turned everything that was good about being a student – broadening your mind, having fun, being free – upside down. But it’s become a little too easy to bash students, to pretend that a new generation of so-called 'snowflakes' are single-handedly destroying Enlightenment values. Student union politicos are, after all, entirely unrepresentative.

Vicious, arrogant, obnoxious and possibly evil. These were the words Donald Trump used to describe Piers Morgan, when he won the first series of Celebrity Apprentice. That’s right: even the man they say is Hitler’s second coming is wary of Britain’s most insipid TV export. The combination made last night’s exclusive ITV interview, between Morgan and The Donald himself, a recipe for outrage. Twitterers compared it to Alien vs Predator. Or Jeremy Kyle meets Frost/Nixon. Alan Sugar told Morgan to climb out of Trump’s arse. And 140-character bilge did fly. But the chummy, half-hour chat, filmed in Trump Tower, wasn’t anything to write home about.

Another British university has been revealed as a mini GDR. And this time it’s not the fault of those speech-policing students’ unions. The University of Edinburgh – which recently hit headlines after its students association banned head-shaking – has been slammed for an Orwellian new practice designed to keep tabs on its staff. Under a new scheme, reported in Times Higher Education, university staff will be required to report their whereabouts ‘when officially at work, but not in their normal place of work’. The provisions, originally meant to apply only to staff from outside the EU, have been extended to all 13,000 employees, in an effort to ensure they are applied in a ‘fair and proportionate’ manner.

Jerry Seinfeld’s takedown of the political correctness of today’s youth should give us all pause for thought. In an interview on US radio, the sitcom and stand-up star said that college campuses have become a no-go area for comedians. ‘I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, “Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC”' he said, before launching into a story about the time his 14-year-old daughter accused his wife of being ‘sexist’ for suggesting that she may soon want to start seeing boys. ‘They just want to use these words. That’s racist. That’s sexist. That’s prejudice. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

One month on from the Charlie Hebdo massacre, free speech is still under attack. The outpouring of public revulsion at the bloody silencing of ‘blasphemous’ cartoonists after the attack was inspiring. It was a visceral display of support for the right to speak one’s mind – as crudely, offensively and blasphemously as one chooses – that has been absent for some time. But deep-rooted ambivalences have remained – and now these look to be exploited by policymakers looking to institute blasphemy laws of their own. When it comes to cracking down on aberrant ideas, Europe has long been leading the way. Restrictions on hate speech are in place across Europe.