It has long been regarded as an offence to respond with a flippant "there's a bomb in there" when asked if there are any dangerous substances in your bag at airport check-in. It's also taboo to go into a crowded theatre and shout "fire." Unless, in each case, of course, the statements are true.

But it has also long been regarded as English humour to use irony, sarcasm and insult.

In the past decade, under the guise of combating "hate speech," many of those freedoms have been unwisely and unfairly curtailed. The low spot was when, according to a policeman who does not want to be identified, the Metropolitan Police, accused of "institutionalised racism" took black pudding and "bubble-and-squeak" off their breakfast menus.

There is an increasing tendency to call a wide range of comments incitement or hate.

When a man tweeted about a Muslim woman journalist "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really" he thought his flippant comment in response to an item she had presented on BBC Radio 5 was funny. OK, so it's not. Indeed, it is offensive on multiple levels and bases. But is it sufficient to justify a prosecution? The police appear to think so: he has been arrested but so far not charged with any offence. However, the arrest was in connection with "an offence under the Communications Act 2003." However, exactly what part of that Act he is alleged to have breached is as yet unclear.

But another case has not only come before the courts, it has also been subject to appeal.

27 year old Paul Chambers sent a tweet to a girlfriend - but also posted it in public. It said "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"He has been fined GBP1,000 because his tweet was, two courts have found, "menacing."

It takes a certain sort of person to fail to see that people in frustrating situations use black humour to relieve themselves. The case brings to mind the doctor who was disciplined for putting the long-established term "jpfrog" as cause of death. When relatives read the notes (which, although left in public are supposed to be the hospital's confidential record) and asked what it meant they took exception. Honestly: how many people would mind that their own death was described as "Just Plain F***ing ran out of gas." Which would you prefer? JPFrog or "old age."

It is incredible that Chambers' tweet could be taken seriously.

If it is so, then many forms of protest would result in huge numbers of arrests. Banners frequently include inciteful or spiteful phrases. No one expects anyone to act on them and no one expects to be arrested for making a point with an over-the-top phrase.

But that is exactly what is happening in the two cases referred to above.

Free speech? Not in Britain, there isn't.

One has to feel sorry for the police. They are expected to build a case based on utterly subjective criteria. For more than a century, the authorities have struggled to build a case based on obscenity or outraging public morality. That is because one man's porn is another man's art.

And it appears that the medium is as important as the message: when 21 year old Roshonara Choudhry was jailed earlier this month for stabbing Stephen Timms, a Member of Parliament. She was not charged with terrorist offences despite the judge's conclusion that "You intended to kill in the political cause and to strike at those in government by doing so." Outside the court, a group of men protested against the sentence shouting, amongst other things, "Death to Timms," according to several newspaper reports. They waved a signs (printed on A4 paper) bearing a wide variety of offensive messages.

They were not arrested or charged despite the clear closeness to actual violence. The Sun, a UK tabloid, reported "A City of London Police spokesman said of the Old Bailey incident last night: "We monitored the situation outside the court but no complaints were made to us."

One wonders what would have happened if one of them had happened to scream "we'll blow you all up."

The double standards are obvious.

And that's not British even as the right to free speech historically is.

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