The lesson of Scotland’s new hate crime law, unleashed on a baffled nation on April Fool’s Day, is that free speech needs perpetual vigilance. When your back’s turned, the nutters — step forward First Minister Humza Yousaf — will introduce restrictions on what ordinary people say and think which could put them in jail.
Far more worryingly, it means you think twice before saying anything that might get you into trouble, not with the thought police, but the actual police. And that’s not just in public but in your own home — because you can be done for views said in private.
