Britain has a problem with national honesty. All around us, there exists a hostility to challenging thought – encouraging rigid conformity and credentialism. This restrictive environment forces us to have a split personality, with an authentic private view and a highly moderated public one.
Those who work in senior positions in business and beyond are constantly navigating minefields that could cost them their career or, worse, have them ‘cancelled’. This stifles genuine leadership and creativity. Without open speech, we will never resolve the deep-rooted issues facing the UK.
Free speech is often dismissed as a so-called ‘culture wars’ issue, bearing little relevance to everyday life. However, as I argued at the Adam Smith Institute’s annual Ayn Rand lecture last night, it is crucial to the cut-and-thrust of intellectual discourse, serving as a key driver of economic and philosophical progress.
When academics are hounded out of universities and students are too afraid to speak up, we miss out on crucial innovations. If you don’t believe me, just leaf through a few history books. Because of the Catholic Church’s monopoly on intellectual discourse, it took years for us to accept Copernicus’ claim that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
While born from a well-meaning desire to prevent offence, cancel culture does not, in fact, protect us. Instead, it promotes half-truths, distortions and reductive explanations of events. This has real-world effects, leading to an ostensibly kind-hearted but fatally misguided policies.
Despite the imperative to promote candid discussion, we are reflexively drifting towards more censorship. The Government’s suspension of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 is the latest example of this worrying trend. Through inaction and complacency, we are heightening the climate of fear in universities.
Having lived in Soviet Russia, Ayn Rand keenly understood the value of free speech, characterising it as a ‘life-and-death issue’. Rand encouraged societies to not ‘give up the freedom of the press—of newspapers, books, magazines, television, radios, movies, and every other form of presenting ideas’. Rand believed that ‘so long as that’s free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible’.
Now, Rand didn’t believe that speech is consequence free – controversial statements warrant scrutiny. However, she boldly resisted attempts at government censorship, supporting a Darwinian intellectual environment where the best ideas thrive and the weakest perish. Worryingly, when censorship suppresses moderate forms of dissent, extremist alternatives end up thriving.
To promote honesty, we also need to get serious about diversifying our institutions – and I mean diversity in the genuine sense of the word.
After leaving the army, I had no job and no degree, but I managed to get an entry-level role at Barings Securities and eventually ended up as CEO of Saxo UK. I fear that the route that I took would be much more difficult today. Due to the requirements for Russell Group university degrees and the nature of screening processes, we risk selecting people with very similar backgrounds, and experiences. This is not to suggest that all those who worked hard to get onto graduate schemes are in any way undeserving. But it breeds conformity – leading to groupthink and all the problems that come with it.
Our country is crumbling into a managed decline, justified by superficial rhetoric. To reinject honesty into national life, we need to draw on talent from across British society.
Our quality of life, and our place in the world, is not guaranteed. As those who’ve read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ know all too well, a country can tear itself apart faster than anyone expects. If we’re going to fix Britain, we need to start by being honest about the challenges it faces.
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