Open societies in which we try to settle our differences without violence have been a great human achievement. However, because freedom of speech is the prevailing view in Britain, we are not as alert to the risk of its overthrow as we should be. In 'A New Inquisition', Jon Gower Davies, former Head of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Newcastle, examines the new legal concept of 'religious hatred' and provides striking examples from recent legal cases to reveal the oddity of judicial attempts to regulate such things. Hate legislation removes an increasing quantity of matters traditionally dealt with in civil society, to be seen as the domain of the state and the courts. Furthermore, the exercise of such legislation seems to create the very atmosphere it was designed to prevent - hatred. Davies warns against developments which will make traditional public debates about religion and its critics impossible. He heralds a British culture which validates a public seeking for religious truth, not a trial: and is more or less at ease with jokes and ribaldries, and ill at ease with censorship of them or with threats made against their authors.The freedom to speak our minds without fear or favour is worth fighting for. In 'A New Inquisition', Davies shows why the liberal majority needs to reassert the convention that the law should be used not as a weapon to suppress unpopular opinions, but rather as the protector of free speech.