Why is Waitrose investigating its staff for thoughtcrime?

Enjoy the cartoons in the Daily Telegraph? Then, whatever you do, don’t let your boss find out. You might be suspended from work, subject to a ‘disciplinary hearing’. Perhaps even face the sack.

This might seem incredible, but it is the reality facing Ben Woods, a 41-year-old wine expert employed by Waitrose in Henley, Oxfordshire. Over the weekend, it emerged that Woods is being investigated for his ‘problematic’ social-media activity by John Lewis, which owns the supermarket chain.

According to reports, the case against Woods is contained in a 30-post dossier compiled by Waitrose. Examples of Woods’s ‘problematic’ posts include sharing a Telegraph cartoon that joked that a schoolboy had failed his sex-education class by failing to name all 100 genders. Another post questioned whether it was ‘misinformation’ for a man to claim he was pregnant. Going by Woods’s prodigious X activity, he seems to be ensconced in the world of the online right. But while some of his colleagues or customers might not like his views, he is perfectly entitled to express them. Certainly, they should be none of his employer’s business.

According to the page set up to help fund Woods’s legal fees, he will face a disciplinary hearing later this month. The Free Speech Union, which is defending Woods, says he is one of more than 250 employees it is representing in similar circumstances across the country. Bosses increasingly feel emboldened to police their employees’ speech, and this can only get worse under Labour – which appears hell-bent on tightening Britain’s already-suffocating speech laws.

No matter your political beliefs, everyone who believes in free speech should be Team Woods in this battle.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.