A Public Service Broadcast

 

My American friends will probably not have heard of the BB’s annual Reith Lectures, named after John Reith, founder of the BBC. These are given annually by a distinguished figure and broadcast on Radio 4. This year’s lecturer is a Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman.

 

The BBC describes Bregman’s lectures thus:

“Titled Moral Revolution, the lectures will delve into the current 'age of immorality', explore a growing trend for unseriousness among elites, and ask how we can follow history’s example and assemble small, committed groups to spark positive change.

Bregman's 2025 Reith Lectures will reflect on moments in history, including the likes of the suffragette and abolitionist movements, which have sparked transformative moral revolutions, offering hope for a new wave of progressive change. Across four lectures, he will also consider the explosive technological progress of recent years - placing us at a moment of immense risk and possibility, and will look ahead to how we might shape the future.”

 

The lectures have been much in the news recently here in the UK because the BBC, on legal advice, has cut from one of his lectures Bregman’s description of Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” I do not approve of censorship and bullying of publications and media, so I am notifying my tiny audience of this cowardly censorship.

 

I only once consulted a libel lawyer in 40 years of publishing. The book concerned was the Truth and Reconciliation Report, produced by the South African government after the end of Apartheid. It provided the opportunity for those who had participated in violent repression, torture and murder to confess what they had done. The lawyer told me not to publish because it libelled many people as murderers and torturers, and thus destroyed their reputation. I argued that they had no reputation because they had confessed. My boss and I agreed that we could not libel thugs and criminals ignores the lawyer.

 

Is it possible to damage Mr. Trump’s reputation? Opinions welcome.