Sputnik Orbiting the World: Cancel сulture and Martyn’s Law

Not since Barry Humphries donned a blue rinse wig and presented Dame Edna Everage to the world has there been a dame as outspoken as Twitter sensation Titania McGrath. She is a spoof of the current ‘cancel culture’ and springs from the imagination of Andrew Doyle. He took the name from Shakespeare’s Titania, Queen of the Faeries who believed in fantasies and applies them to the real world. But there is a serious side to the parody which Doyle discusses in his latest book examining free speech. He believes the question should not be about the substance or content, but rather about defending the bigger question of the freedom to say it. So, we invited Andrew Doyle onto Sputnik to discuss the changing landscape of free speech.

In 2017, a bomb ripped through the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert. 22 people were sadly killed in the attack, and now four years on from the atrocity, a new law is set to bring a legal requirement for public places and venues to ensure preparedness for, and protection from, terrorist attacks. Martyn’s Law, named after Martyn Hett, who died in the bombing, is the result of campaigning by his mother, Figen Murray who has lobbied for proper security requirements and a duty to protect public spaces and venues, sadly missing from the Ariana Grande concert. Counter-terrorism expert Philip Ingram MBE came on to Sputnik to explain the mechanisms of Martyn’s law and discuss the failures highlighted during the ongoing Arena bombing inquiry.