Hamza Yousef the current Scottish Health Secretary and former Scottish Justice Secretary is one of those politicians that is pretty easy to dislike. He currently presides over a Scottish NHS that appears to be failing those who pay for it and who would like to use it. It was this failing and creaking Scottish NHS that recently failed to send an ambulance out for a sick person for forty hours, a delay that resulted in the patient’s death.

As Justice Secretary, Yousef steered through the Scottish Parliament one of the most egregious assaults on freedom of speech that the United Kingdom has seen in centuries. This ‘hate crime’ act because it criminalises any ‘communication of material’ that is considered to be offensive ‘in any way’, even could stretch into the home and criminalise private conversations held within the home. This Act even gives the Scottish Police the power to force entry into a person’s home if the police suspect that there is ‘material’ that might be offensive contained within it. The Scottish ‘hate speech’ legislation is even worse than that which applies to England and Wales which is saying something as the legislation that afflicts the rest of the UK is pretty bad in and of itself when it comes to freedom of speech restrictions.

Therefore, because of Yousef’s truly appalling record when it comes to protecting the freedoms of those British subjects who have the misfortune to live in Scotland, a lot of people could not help but laugh when Yousef made himself look a complete twat by falling off a four wheeled scooter whilst showing off for the cameras. There was a massive amount of mirth all round when the appalling Yousef took his tumble.

Following Yousef’s pratfall the short video of the incident went somewhat viral and Yousef appealed to the public not to share and mock his downfall. Sadly very few people whether north or south of the Scottish border seemed to take much notice of his plea and the video, embedded below, has been shared thousands of times. Tyrants hate mockery which is why when tyrants gain power the first people they oppress or silence are comedians and those members of the public who mock the tyrant. Yousef’s tyrannical ‘hate speech’ Act that could end up criminalising private conversations in the home and will be extremely flexible and easy to abuse in how it is imposed is the work of a political tyrant and because of that Yousef is being mocked by all and sundry.

Of course schadenfreude is not nice and can come from feelings of rivalry and aggression but it can also be linked to the idea of justice and seeing bad people get their just desserts. For many people seeing Yousef being made to look a fool after showing off is I believe linked to the idea of a man behind some pretty bad legislation getting some form of payback and even better payback caused by his own hubris.