One of Voltaire’s soldiers

It’s 1975.

The coal miners accept a 35% pay rise offer.

The Moorgate tube crash claims 43 lives – a further 74 people are seriously injured.

Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of the Conservative Party.

Labour Party members vote against staying in the EC (now the EU).

Manchester United wins promotion back to the old First Division and West Ham wins the FA Cup.

A court wrongly convicts the Birmingham Six to life in prison.

Unemployment reaches 1.25m. The National Front is active. The IRA is active.

The film, Monty Python and The Holy Grail is released.

Fawlty Towers is first aired on TV.

It snowed on the second day of June.

So, there was plenty to discuss in 1975; everyone held different opinions, creating heated debates up and down the country. Some people organised demos because of the economic and political situation. Good for them, it’s their right.

Against this backdrop, I joined my local evening newspaper as a trainee journalist. They

drilled one thing into me, both in the Newsroom and at training college. The Press must

defend the right to report news without government control and as individuals we may

express our views – freely.

I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. – attributed to the philosopher Voltaire.

That was me. One of Voltaire’s soldiers, although I fully accepted (and still do) the

boundaries of preaching racism, slander, sexism, et al.

But I get the sense now I’m no longer allowed to express my views freely. I must keep them to myself.

We’ve even had a case of someone being arrested for what they’re thinking!

Do I have to accept the views of a few zealots, no matter what those views are? Sadly, it

appears I must. What is worrying, though, is there’s a risk of society being overly influenced by a loose confederation of passionate minorities.

Let’s get back to 1975. It was a busy year because there was also a referendum on EC

membership. We’d been members since 1973 – this was a vote to decide if we stayed in.

I was always a supporter of a single market in Europe. There was a turnout of 64% and 67% voted in favour – including me.

The then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson (Labour, for the sake of younger readers) urged us to use our votes because – ‘your vote will decide. The Government will accept your verdict.’

Fast forward five decades to 2016. The EC has become the EU, a complex political

organisation, which believes it governs most of Europe. There’s little talk of a simple

‘common market’ anymore.

But there is talk of single sovereignty and an EU army. The greedy elite seem in control, the nanny superstate is increasingly sinister. I never signed up to that, so I put my cross in the Leave box. But, once word got out, the popular reaction was that I am a racist!

No, I argue, I’m not a racist but a free-thinking individual with the right to hold an opinion and the freedom to exercise my vote. In fact, I’m still scratching my head, trying to make the leap from my economic and political considerations to being a racist. Why any label? Is it just because I don’t agree with you?

It worries me. It’s sort of Brave New World meets 1984, two books that, in my late teenage years, a favourite college lecturer urged me to read. I did. Frighteningly, I think such fears for the future – deemed outlandish when written by Huxley and Orwell – hold more truth than we knew back then.