I call troll on that one, heard it too much and its a hilariously reactionary cliche.

However, I’ll engage in the troll. I sometimes feel its quite a shame I believe in freedom of expression and that I dont control the State, because sometimes, on an emotional level, I do wish I could use State power to brutalize stupid, ignorant and reactionary fools which you are portraying. The content of your joke, if it werent a joke of course, offends me to my inner humanistic core. I’m no pacifist, so I believe violence is sometimes necessary to progress political goals, and while ordinary people arent the problem, some of them, if they express such vile statements in a serious, non-joke way, perhaps would be the bedrock of any fascist reaction against democratic and progressive forces in society. So once again, in jokey form, I wonder what the people who express views you are satarising would say when I point out which wall has their name on it.

Try a thought experiment. In your mind, modify the text that this offender wrote alongside the image in such a way that it conveys the same idea in a more high brow style. Then ask yourself whether the law should intervene. I’ll go first. “Soldiers s’ jobs are to maim and kill. I will not honour them.”

Would the picture by itself constitute an offence? The police do not seem to think so.

Adam – “I don’t understand why there is such an uproar about the arrest. So far from what I’ve read in the press he was arrested after police investigated a complaint they had received. No charges have been brought yet, so we’re a bit premature to get angry.” Complaint came from a far right activist group. The man has now been detained for nearly 24 hours, which is itself punitive.

“Secondly, this young man is free to express his opinion without being offensive and potentially breaking the law.” He is free to be offensive too. As for potentially breaking the law, he would not be alone in wondering how exactly he has. One of the requirements of Article 10 of ECHR in 10.2 is that any interference is prescribed by law, which itself means among other things that people should be able to anticipate how the law would be applied. I would not have anticipated this. Many lawyers have expressed surprise as well. His method of expressing his political view (though likely to offend some) is perfectly legal as far as I was aware up until yesterday.

Secondly, this young man is free to express his opinion without being offensive and potentially breaking the law. For example, if I wanted express an anti-capitalism view by vandalizing high street banks I don’t think anyone would be surprised if I was arrested. There would be legal ways for me to express my point of view. I believe this situation is the same. He has done something (possibly) deemed illegal in expressing a point of view. He should find a legal method of expressing himself in future.

This is freedom of expression.

When I recently reported a company for fraud to the police they (surprise surprise) did not want to know. I have had many friend who have had the same experience with the police.

Report a real crime and they do not want to know. Very Worrying.