Pnewsology

The week’s news with a dash of psychology!

Jane Ogden (Professor in Health Psychology, Emeritus; email janeogden509@gmail.com; based on a conversation with James Cannon at Radio Surrey; 8.40 am 27/02/2026)

Week ending 27/02/2026

All opinions are those of Jane Ogden

We have a democracy and we live in the free world.  But do we? This week’s news has been full of stories highlighting what we can and cannot do – and the line of freedom has been tested!

We had the by-election in Manchester which was won by the Green party.  We can still vote and choose our government.  AND more importantly we can get them out.  A key part of freedom.

We also heard about the debate in the House of Commons which saw MPs have a frank discussion about Andrew’s role after his arrest last week.  The MPs openly criticised him with none of the usual pandering to the royal family and he was called ‘a rude, arrogant and entitled man’. No censorship there.

And the assisted dying bill was passed in Jersey giving people the right to chose when to die.  Another success for freedom.

We also saw the ban on ‘Palestine Action’ being overturned as it was deemed that their actions were not enough to designate them as a terrorist organisation.  Thousands of people have been arrested since Yvette Cooper made her decision over a year ago.  The government can appeal this decision, but for the time being it looks like freedom of speech and action may have been upheld.

But then we heard about the BAFTA awards and their failure to censor the ‘n’ word called out by John Davidson who has Tourette’s whilst they managed to censor out the call for a ‘Free Palestine’ by one of the filmmakers.

We also read that Instagram will alert parents if teenagers search for self harm or suicide content (that has to be a good thing!).

And we heard of the dreadful story when a wheelchair user was put into a nursing home without her consent – her freedom was clearly violated.

We like to think we have freedom.  And we can still vote and say and do many of the things we want to.  But our freedom is clearly limited – as the saying goes one person’s freedom is another person’s prison.  Limiting freedom has to be a good thing at times if it prevents racist abuse, sexism, lying, self-harm or serious harm to others.  But we still need to be able to call out what we see as wrong.  Surely just annoying others or making them a bit upset has to be allowed? We need laws to prevent the abuse of others, but it would nice if we could just rely on common sense to stop those in power just lying to us whilst we are allowed to upset others when we feel its necessary.