Letter: Free speech or a platform for lies?

Sir: Ben Greene (Letters, 9 July) quotes Voltaire on tolerance to support David Irving's right to freedom of expression. I agree with his point but find Voltaire a strange authority in this context.

His mot on defending to the death the freedom to express even abhorrent views cannot, I believe, be traced in any of his writings or be authenticated by any contemporary reference. The usual source given for the attribution is S G Tallentyre's The Friends of Voltaire, published only in 1907.

Anyway, Voltaire was poisonously anti-Semitic. In the Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764, recycling earlier material) he describes the Jews as 'an ignorant and barbarous people who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched'. Although he did add the chilling concession 'still we ought not to burn them', he was constantly thereafter used as an authority in the development of the anti-Semitic ideology that culminated in the Holocaust.

Mr Irving should be allowed free expression, since this is likely to lead to his exposure and discredit, as the usual consequence of ample rope. However, I cannot help thinking that Voltaire would have tolerated him without reluctance and even with enthusiasm and hope.

Yours sincerely,

JOE KERRIGAN

Huddersfield,

West Yorkshire

9 July