The Argus: Brighton Festival ThumbThis event was billed as a debate on freedom of expression as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A more appropriate tag would have been “The Julian Assange Show”.

The controversial WikiLeaks boss appeared to the sold-out audience via a live video feed because his bail conditions do not allow him to take part in person.

Assange is facing extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sex offences. He denies the allegations against him.

It was clear from the start that tonight Assange was among friends. The questions from Sue Stapely, BBC TV programme-maker turned politician, and solicitor were soft and he was given free rein to indulge his belief that the world’s media has a “scheming agenda” to bring him down.

It would have been a more thought-provoking event if the panel contained one of Assange’s opponents.

Instead, Mark Stephens, partner at Finers Stephens Innocent (Assange’s lawyers) and Dr Martin Moore, Director of the Media Standards Trust, were happy to give the floor to the articulate WikiLeaks founder.

Assange should have been pressed harder on one particular point – the fate of Bradley Manning.

The 23-year-old United States Army soldier was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed restricted material to the website WikiLeaks.

He’s been held in punitive conditions, including solitary confinement, and awaits a hearing to decide if he will face a court martial. Assange should have addressed this instead of rail at length against his supposed persecutors.

We were promised an analysis of free speech. We got one man’s grudge match.