ONE of the most cherished of the freedoms we enjoy in Britain, albeit challenged on a daily basis, is the right of free speech. Sometimes that right allows people to make comments and offer views and opinions which might be contrary to those held by any of us as individuals or a wider section of society; that should not prohibit an individual from being allowed to have their say. That is not to say that in the name of freedom one is free to slander, incite hatred or provoke criminal conduct, far from it for in such cases the law is clear and offers the citizen protection through the judicial system.

The Swindon Advertiser is quite right to defend itself against the tirade of those who objected to the article in which a ‘mystic’ claimed to have spoken to missing Madeleine McCann. Good or bad taste is not in itself an arbiter of journalistic worth, neither is prejudice, bias or ideology; if and when they are used to determine the content of the paper we will have reached a state of censorship which no free thinking or right minded person would approve.

As a regular contributor to the pages of the Adver I am grateful that I am allowed to articulate views on a wide variety of subjects (I am sure that there are those who wish the Editor would censor all my letters) and I am aware that some of the points I raise challenge others to write in rebuttal. That is how it should be. The exchange of viewpoints, the dissection of arguments and above all the free flow of different thoughts expressed in literary form is an essential freedom and should be defended and protected as such. Words probably incorrectly attributed to the philosopher Voltaire are often quoted to support freedom of speech they are ‘I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. Very recently someone stopped me and said they had read a recent letter of mine and at first they disagreed with what I had said but upon reading the letter a second time they found that the underlying message was something with which they did agree. I would commend this view to readers. Before responding to an article or letter always read it more than once and consider context as well as content and then pen your earnest reply which I hope the Adver will publish either online or in the ‘Your Views’ section.

Des Morgan Caraway Drive Swindon