I truly despair over this ‘snowflake generation’

Des O’Connor, singer/presenter, Michael Aspel, TV presenter, Maggie Bell, singer/songwriter,

Anthony Andrews, actor, Brendan Foster, athletics commentator Howard Stern, radio DJ, Melanie Chisholm, singer

Gemma Arterton, actress, IN the past few months we have seen a teacher censured for ‘misgendering’ a girl (or was it a boy?), a man accused of ‘serious racial abuse’ for telling, in a fit of pique, an Asian gentleman to put a book where the sun doesn’t shine, a Cabinet minister resigning for placing his hand upon a journalist’s knee, a company employee pilloried for calling a young lady ‘honey,’ a chef receiving death threats because she ‘spiked’ (put cheese into) a vegan’s meal, a man tweeting the words ‘Helen Mirren looks lovely’ used as an example of sexual misconduct and a football commentator taken to task for joking that a man, caught on camera waving his crutches in the air, would not get his benefits this week.

Until now the expression ‘snowflake generation’ had left me puzzled.

But, sadly, given all the above and so much more I find the expression entirely appropriate and I despair ... I truly despair. READING back the Sunday newspapers the day before Theresa May’s reshuffle I did wonder where they got their information from that six of her Cabinet Ministers would either be sacked or given other jobs including Chancellor Phillip Hammond and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt - both have stayed put with Hunt taking on the extra work of Social Care.

Some ministers refused to budge which highlights the very weak position that Theresa May is in, very similar to John Major when Labour won the 1997 general election.

Justine Greening, who resigned as Education Secretary, will be known as the minister who tried to cut £3 billion from school funding and the new Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis insisted in 2014 that building developers should not be forced to fit sprinklers.

When former Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacked seven cabinet ministers in 1962 it was known as the ‘night of the long knives.’ Journalists have dubbed May’s reshuffle as the ‘night of the plastic forks.’

This Government is on its way out.