This I don't understand:

There had been reports that 10,000 Muslims were ready to protest against the film but the press screening in Westminster passed without incident.

So, to recap - we ban an (admitedly crass and ignorant) elected official from the country because of his controversial film. And then we show the film anyway... Eh?

I don't get this whole suppression of free speech thing, but I do have to say that this seems to be an unusually ineffective way of banning free speech. Since the message that was supposed to be suppressed by the state got out anyway.

I'm not sure why Wilders had to be deported from the country. Maybe the government was afraid that, because he'd been invited by a Lord, that he was going to try to bribe a government official in order to get his views into the law. What I do know is that had the government not bothered with their deportation, then this film and its maker would not have got a fraction of the publicity that had dominated so much of the media for the past 24 hours.