Journo Soc President wants to invite Putin and Mugabe to speak on campus

The Journalism Society President has said he wants to invite controversial world leaders Putin, Mugabe and Kim Jong-Un to speak at Bristol next.

The comments by Ben Kew follow controversy over his decision to invite journalist Milo Yiannopoulos to speak about gender equality at Bristol.

Milo has been banned from several other uni campuses for breaching their “safe space” policy.

In a column for Breitbart, the conservative mouth piece where Yiannopoulos is technology editor, Ben brazenly compares student protesters seeking to no-platform speakers to the terrorists responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January.

Calling them “campus crazies”, he goes on to admit that although he doubts groups such as the Bristol University Feminist Society might want to “massacre people”, they certainly are willing to go to extreme lengths to protect their beliefs.

Ben and Milo at one of Milo’s parties this weekend

Ben writes he would be happy to invite a whole range of “bigots, homophobes, and dictators” to speak at university if he could.

He argues that this way their views and ideologies can be publicly discredited in front of a large assembly while no-platform culture does nothing to help with this.

When approached for comment, Ben said:

“Of course the article was tongue in cheek, there’s no way that any of those speakers would talk at a British university even though it would be an enriching experience.

“The point still remains though – the best way to deconstruct bad ideas is by giving them a spotlight to scrutiny, not by trying to censor them.’”