Every few months the Broadcasting ‘Standards Authority  comes out with decisions to remind us of the danger they represent to our freedom of speech. A twice convicted drunk driver was “humiliated” by being filmed as she left court, and running away from the camera, then named.

So? In more civilized times the main sanction discouraging offending was shame.

More importantly, if humiliation is now verboten, how would any of the great campaigns of the enlightenment have got off the ground. An indispensable weapon of those who fought for freedom of speech was mockery, and exposure of hypocrisy and ignorance, indeed humiliation.

This body’s powers must be cut, urgently.