Confessing Evangelical

Is it free speech to shout "Nonsense!" in a crowded conference centre?

An 82-year old man named Walter Wolfgang - a "veteran Labour activist" who came to this country as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany - found out the government's answer to that question yesterday, when he was manhandled out of the Labour party conference for heckling the foreign secretary, Jack Straw (video footage available here).

Mr Wolfgang was then refused readmittance to the venue under - get this - the Terrorism Act.

Once they realised what a PR debacle this had turned into, the Labour party eventually issued a rather limp apology and said Mr Wolfgang could come in today, provided he promises to behave himself.

The irony levels hit even more dangerous heights when we consider what it was that prompted Mr Wolfgang to engage in his terrorist-style disruption: namely, Jack Straw's assertion that:

"We are in Iraq for one reason only - to help the elected Iraqi government build a secure, democratic and stable nation".

And what a fine example we are setting them, too.

As the Guardian's sketchwriter, Simon Hoggart, points out, this is not an isolated incident. Delegates have been prohibited from taking sweets (i.e. "candy") into the conference hall, because "they could be used as missiles". As Hoggart points out:

The issue may be tiny, but it is a reflection of the state of the Labour party now, combining bombast, vainglory and total paranoia.

And these are the people to whom we are currently entrusting our liberties as they plan new anti-terrorist laws, such as the proposal to make it a criminal offence (punishable by up to five years in prison) to "glorify, exalt or celebrate" terrorism.

As Matthew Parris pointed out in the article I linked in my previous post on this subject, the only way these laws could be made remotely palatable is if they were enforced with a degree of "goodwill and common sense".

Yesterday's events - the use of existing anti-terrorism measures to stop an 82-year old embarrassing the foreign secretary, deadly Mint Imperials confiscated as dangerous weapons - show how much "goodwill and common sense" we can expect once the new laws are in force.

Update: Mr Wolfgang "received a hero's welcome" on his return to the conference this morning. Tony Blair has also apologised.