The other day we were sent a press release about a survey, conducted by YouGov on behalf of Friction TV - the "online debating website" (as, presumably, opposed to an offline debating website, which would be even less useful).

As is tradition, the press release began by picking out some key headlines from the survey's results. Like the Daily Mail on the wrong side of its bed, the email screamed:

Only Half of the British Population has Ever Spoken out About a Sensitive Issue

Er... and this is a bad thing because?

Yes, everyone has the right to free speech. But how stupid you must have to be, to suggest that 50 per cent of the population speaking out is somehow a woefully inadequate showing.

Think about it for a minute. Think of an issue like, say, smoking, or abortion, or religious extremism, or animal testing. Now think of people you know who you think ought to be speaking out about it.

Can you think of anyone? For each of those issues I can think of one or two friends or family members who have direct experience, strong views, and an ability to put those views succinctly and powerfully - in short, they are people who can contribute something worthwhile.

At the same time I can think of plenty of friends, whom I love dearly, who probably shouldn't be trying to speak out about any 'sensitive issue', and indeed aren't doing. Not because they don't have a view, or should be denied their right to free speech, but because lots of other people - mostly newspaper pundits - are already doing the speaking out, and we don't need every man and his dog piling in to have their say.

Of course we treasure our right to free speech but that doesn't mean we should all be taking any and every opportunity to exercise it. Our days are full of enough people trying to preach this or that without each person you meet trying a little amateur evangelism on their chosen issue of the day.

If I feel deeply about something I might write about it here, but is that 'speaking out'? I'd define 'speaking out' as trying to make your views as public as possible, not popping them on your weblog or sharing them over coffee with a few friends. Or I might find a recognised voice on radio, television or in print, who shares my views, and email them my support. That's not speaking out, that's democracy - electing someone else to represent me far more effectively than I can.

Just think about that 50 per cent of the nation. If that's such a bad figure, what might be better? Let's say 80 per cent of the nation get the chance to speak out. Who's in that 80 per cent? Without sinking too swiftly into any depths of class stereotyping, 80 per cent of Britain would include some fairly unsavoury types, not to mention some people who simply don't know enough about anything to hold a view worth speaking out with, when others are doing it better.

If we lived in a world where more than 50 per cent of the population spoke out about sensitive issues, we'd be all the poorer for it. So whatever it was you had to say that's really important: save it and talk to me about telly instead.