Ofcom is a menace to our freedom of speech

Like a good many turns on Britain’s Got Talent, dance troupe Diversity don’t do subtle. Slickly danced and well choreographed, its semi-final performance on 5 September nevertheless contained what looked remarkably like an uncritical and overt plug for Black Lives Matter. Among other things, it encompassed a policeman kneeling on a black man’s neck, a film of a burning car and a sequence of an activist kicking and demolishing a line of riot shields.

Unsurprisingly, nearly 25,000 complaints flooded Ofcom, almost a record for a single broadcast. ITV’s programme had, it was said, broken specific rules set by Ofcom in the Broadcasting Code, in that it had been unsuitable for children; contained scenes of violence, humiliation and apparent anti-white racism; condoned violence; and shown palpable political partisanship. Last Thursday, however, Ofcom summarily dismissed the complaints as undeserving of investigation.

The right-leaning press and conservative Twittersphere were predictably unimpressed. And on one level one can see why. Ofcom published its justification for not investigating, and its reasoning was somewhat curious. The performance had been, it said, perfectly family-friendly, since in its view the imagery – violence to an arrestee, burning cars, and attacks on riot shields – had not been graphic. Nor had there been racism or condonation of violent behaviour; and besides, a few minutes after the image of a burning car there had been reassuring images of people clapping in thanks to the NHS, so that was all right. And the routine had not really been political, because no-one had explicitly said they supported the political programme of BLM. Much of this can be politely described as a mixture of naivete, disingenuousness and what appears to be a thinly disguised desire in Ofcom to reassure Diversity that the troupe needn’t worry about a few tiresome conservatives, because they could rely on the woke regulator to be on their side.

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