Peter Hill
THE times they are a-changin’. Of course they’ve always been changing – Bob Dylan wrote that line in 1963 – but I think we are seeing some of the most profound changes in our history because the way we think, speak and act is being challenged.
Political correctness and thought crime has our culture in a grip of iron. Our universities, which should be centres of free speech and robust debate, are enfeebled by a fatuous campaign for “safe spaces” and protection from controversial opinions. Students tell me they need to choose the words they say and write very carefully to avoid censure from both their colleagues and lecturers.
All of us but especially anyone in the public eye can’t be too cautious. Just recently the Duchess of Cornwall has been hounded to stop wearing a vintage fur hat, Princess Michael of Kent was lambasted over a “racist” brooch, Prince Philip was taken to task for joking that a bearded man might be a terrorist. Comedians no longer dare to be funny.
Rather than pursue criminals, at which they are not very successful, our police are on the lookout for hate crimes, our local authorities are persecuting us for violations of bizarre refuse collection rules, for dropping a matchstick, even for swearing. Our lives are monitored by a vast army of bureaucrats and CCTV cameras, so-called smart TVs are actually watching us.
Then there is the internet where hackers are trying to rob us, and social media where trolls are waiting to ambush us. Just around the corner, robots are preparing to take our jobs. I fear for the future of my children and grandchildren. q YOU can choose your friends but not your family, as Prince Harry has quickly found out after remarking that Christmas at Sandringham was “the family she never had” for his fiancée Meghan Markle. Crash, bang, wallop! She was surrounded by love, her folks in America hit back, thus paving the way for heavy frosts at future get-togethers. If only he had consulted me, I could have warned him that (old Saddleworth maxim) relationship is the worst ship that ever sailed. q QUANGOCRAT Lord Adonis has resigned as head of the National Infrastructure Commission, whatever that is, and is busy knocking the Government. He follows Alan Milburn, who flounced out of his job as some sort of equality tsar.
Both men are former Labour ministers who have no love for the Tories, which begs the question: why does the Government give high-powered jobs to the enemy? The entire NHS seems to be run by Left-wingers, as does the education system. They all have an anti-Tory agenda as, I suspect, do the civil and public services.
Very little can be done without the approval of these mandarins. It takes a mighty will such as Margaret Thatcher’s to make any impression on them and even then they quickly revert to Sir Humphrey-style blocking tactics once the “tiresome” charismatic leader has been got rid of. q I’VE had enough of humble pie. Every year when the honours come up it’s all we hear, a chorus of how this and that award has deeply humbled the recipient. Humbug more like. Why not come out and say, “Hooray, I love it”? I’m happy for all the nice people who have been honoured but I felt slightly sick when I heard that Nick Clegg had got a knighthood. The only honour he deserves is the Nobel Prize for Smugness. q I AM an Apple fan from way back. I have drawers full of old iPods and iPhones, I am typing this on a MacBook. I believed that Apple was a great and decent company but I am dismayed by the news that it has been secretly slowing down older phones when system upgrades are installed.
The company insists it is only trying to prolong battery life (rather than forcing us to buy its latest models) but why didn’t it warn us that this would happen? Instead it only came up with the “explanation” after it was found out. Just as Volkswagen was caught bang to rights over dieselgate. Now I suspect all my devices are being nobbled by system upgrades.
Will business leaders ever grasp that the truth is always best? For, as my old Scottish boss often said: “Be sure your sins will find you out.” q THE law over the use of car satnavs needs to be tidied up urgently. Thousands of drivers use their smartphone maps to navigate. The built-in satnav in my old Golf is vastly inferior to Google Maps but if I so much as look at my phone while driving I could be fined and lose my licence. If a phone is properly mounted how is it any different from a dedicated satnav device such as a TomTom or Garmin, which is legal? q THINGS could be worse. In Venezuela, once one of the richest countries in the world thanks to abundant oil and gas reserves, inflation last year hit 1,400 per cent. That means a loaf of bread that cost £1 a year ago is now £1,400. Venezuela is reduced to poverty and starvation thanks to the crazy policies of its socialist rulers. And who is their most fervent fan? Blessed Jeremy Corbyn, who boasts that in 2018 Labour will be a government in waiting. God help us. Nothing else will. q FORGET dry January. You won’t be up to speed unless you are also going vegan. Clean eating is the new orthodoxy. I shall not be subscribing to it but don’t let me discourage you. Happy Veganuary everyone.