The UK didn't have a formal legal guarantee of free speech until the Human Rights Act 1998, and even that comes with some qualifiers that Americans are uncomfortable with.
At the time of Russell's speech, 1922, all the old apparatus of censorship was still in place; the theatre was under the censorship of the Lord Chaimberlain until the 60s, as were books prior to the Lady Chatterly trial. Meanwhile, free speech haven the US was passing one of the Comstock Acts that made it illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#cite_note-5
I'm just old enough to remember when an elected UK politician (Gerry Adams) was legally barred from speaking on television at all.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act makes it an arrestable offence to swear in public. This is very very selectively enforced.
(As for the other bit of the first amendment, can't get much more British than an establishment of religion; it was one of the things many of the colonists were specifically fleeing)
At the time of Russell's speech, 1922, all the old apparatus of censorship was still in place; the theatre was under the censorship of the Lord Chaimberlain until the 60s, as were books prior to the Lady Chatterly trial. Meanwhile, free speech haven the US was passing one of the Comstock Acts that made it illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#cite_note-5
I'm just old enough to remember when an elected UK politician (Gerry Adams) was legally barred from speaking on television at all.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act makes it an arrestable offence to swear in public. This is very very selectively enforced.
(As for the other bit of the first amendment, can't get much more British than an establishment of religion; it was one of the things many of the colonists were specifically fleeing)