One can think of people threatened with action under the Communications Act 2003 (for example Daniel Thomas’s Tweets to diver Tom Daley or the woman cited above who created a Raoul Moat tribute on Facebook) who are, like you, expressing sincerely held on topic views. The common factor appears to be that these views are eccentric and offensive to mainstream opinion (or as the Act would have it ‘grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character’; being on-topic or sincerely holding the offensive opinion is no defence in law).

An additional problem presents itself here as we struggle to understand what is mainstream, especially as mainstream opinion shifts so readily.

Nevertheless, the reaction to the Dale Cregan Facebook page cited above supports the notion that it is offensive to suggested the recently murdered police were dim witted (and why mention their alleged stupidity, if not to imply this was a relevant contributory factor), but I see you’ve not defended yourself on that charge here. With regard to Hillsborough, it is fair to suggest that all who were in the crowd were victims; at the very least all would have suffered some shock. So to blame the crowd is to blame the victims. I have twice experienced poor crowd control leading to, thankfully, minor injury to others in the crowd. The most unlikely of these was queuing to visit the Reichstag, Berlin. The large crowd surged in response to a sudden heavy rain shower and those of us near the front were lifted off our feet and carried forward; a few at the front suffered injury. Obviously, nobody blamed individuals in the crowd; the incident was clearly the result of inadequate stewarding. Similarly, Hillsborough cannot be blamed on members of the crowd.

As for your being courteous — and this is a very minor matter — I would point to your rather silly attempt at insult, (off topic, on this occasion) when I first commented on your blog: ‘(Ooops, no, I’ve just looked at your photo and young you ain’t!)’

You will not find any examples of my stooping to insult either in comments left on your blog or in my replies to you.

You have left disagreeable comments on my blog and received crisp but courteous responses. Should I, then, denounce you as a ‘troll’ – assuming of course that the word is an insult?

Perhaps your confusion arise from your obvious reading difficulties. Nowhere in my conversation with Bob Piper did I say, or even imply, that the victims [at Hillsborough] were to blame in any way. I repeated the fact that was obvious from the very beginning that the people who died had arrived early, had tickets and had behaved properly. The guilty ones were, irrespective of the confused Bishop of Liverpool, the hooligans who pushed and shoved from the back, most of whom arrived late and many of whom did not have tickets.

My belief that the re-introduction of hanging would save lives does not emanate from my knees but from my brain because I have thought about it and reached my current cponclusion after previously holding an opposite opinion. When did you last change your mind, Stephen?