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Today is the anniversary of the birth of Scots poet Robert Burns.

Robert Burns (1759 – 1796)

Through cheery dinners across the world today, one of history’s most recognised literary figures will be acknowledged. Burns’ Address to a Haggis is a salute to characteristics that were not always evident amongst the powerful figures of Burns’ day.

Amusingly, warmly, but certainly not flippantly or rudely, Burns’ praise for the humble and honest soul is encapsulated in the medium of a food staple.

Further reflecting his personal view of social morality, Burns’ diamond pen was also turned to political satire with a devastating riposte etched on the window of a Stirling Inn.[1] The Libeller’s self-reproof juxtaposes the integrity of the great Scottish judge Lord Mansfield (whose contribution to the legal system of England & Wales marks him as something of a founding father) against the characters of those who would seek to silence criticism of King George IV – criticism which was not entirely without merit.[2]

Lord Mansfield (1705 – 1793)

The words etched (around 1787) on a window reflect Burns’ disappointment that fair and free speech could be so chilled by the powerful. 

“Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name
Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame;
Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,
Says, the more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a libel!”

In later years William Hone and George Cruickshank would cruelly lampoon King George IV.  

Cruickshank was persuaded to move from lampooning the King (the Prince of Whales cartoon being perhaps a final straw[3]) to illustrating Dickens’ work.

King George IV (1762 – 1830)

“By 1817 the government had had enough, and retaliated with three prosecutions for blasphemous libel. They were to be the high point of Hone's career. With scant regard for his own fortunes (or those of his wife and his dozen children), and with no formal legal training, Hone defended himself in three separate trials, conducted on consecutive days, before Lord Ellenborough -- the formidably intelligent and un-ashamedly reactionary Lord Chief Justice -- who made no attempt to hide his hostility towards the accused.

By regaling the jury with a seemingly endless (and mostly hilarious) flow of precedents, in which authors as respectable as Luther and Milton had used religious parody without any irreligious intent, Hone turned the prosecution into an object of ridicule, and even managed to leave the vain and pompous Lord Ellenborough -- the original Mr Justice Cocklecarrot -- apparently worsted on points of law.

Hone's acquittal in all three trials brought him renewed notoriety, with thousands taking to the streets in London to celebrate his victory for "Freedom of the Press", while government supporters blackguarded him as a dangerous rascal.” (Adamson, J., Sunday Sutelaph, April 17, 2005).

Just a few days before Burns’ anniversary the new Administration in the USA has sought to chill criticism of the incoming President.[4] As Burns’ said: “The more tis a truth sir, the more tis a libel”.

The freedom of the Press was, some decades earlier, recognised by Burns’ compatriot, philosopher David Hume as being an essential, perhaps perplexing, contrary counter-weight against extremes of government policy.

“If the administration resolve upon war, it is affirmed, that, either wilfully or ignorantly, they mistake the interests of the nation, and that peace, in the present situation of affairs, is preferable. If the passion of the ministers lie towards peace, our political writers breathe nothing but war and devastation, and represent the pacific conduct of the government as mean and pusillanimous.” (David Hume, Essays: Of the Liberty of the Press, first published 1742).

What Hume points to is the contrary-wise balance of the critical publications of the day, pamphleteers, no doubt foremost amongst them, that seemed to Hume to be inherent to cajoling British government towards a position that placed the government at a happy medium as between the extremes of tyranny possible under either totalitarianism or republicanism.

David Hume (1711 – 1776)

But can the contrariness of the Press be counter-productive where the perennial swings of perspective cement short-term public sentiment into real policy change through the, relatively new, medium of popular referendum? At least Press influence may not always, necessarily, be productive. That may have been what Lord Reed was hinting at in his Brexit judgment.

Hume again offers valuable insight. The flaws he identifies are readily discernible in both caricatures historical and contemporary. In a different essay he writes:

“Tis easy to observe, that comic writers exaggerate every character, and draw their fop, or coward with stronger features than are anywhere to be met with in nature… The figures seem monstrous and disproportionate… Thus we find in common life, that when a man once allows himself to depart from the truth in his narrations, he never can keep within the bounds of probability; but adds still some new circumstance to render his stories more marvellous, and to satisfy imagination.” (David Hume, Of Avarice, first published 1742).

Between them, poet and philosopher identified both solution and problem in Press freedom.