It’s time to end this game of vicarious offence-taking
strange thing happened on Twitter the other day. Someone refused to be offended. Bear with me and I’ll explain. A sensitive flower had tweeted that he objected to the use of the term “paddy wagon” for police van, on the grounds that it might upset somebody or other. A scornful Irishman retorted that the term paddy wagon was common parlance, and “could people please stop taking offence on behalf of people who aren’t offended?”.
Some hope. There have been times lately when it has felt as if our fundamentally genial, it-takes-all-sorts, phlegmatic nation has taken leave of its good sense and become a nastier, more intolerant place. Blame it on social media, perhaps, which encourages rude retorts and snap judgments. Blame it on Brexit. Blame it on Corbynism, a religion of true believers that roots out heresy and hates the 40-per-cent-higher-rate infidel.
Whatever the cause, we are spoiling for a fight over the slightest thing. Over nothing, actually. It’s exhausting. As a friend put it: “It’s almost as if we’re waiting to catch people out.”
Caught out this week in the blame game of Vicarious Offence-taking are, in no particular order, Jacob “abortion dinosaur” Rees-mogg, Paul “Nazi impersonator” Hollywood, and Susan Calman, the Scottish comedian who made her Strictly Come Dancing debut.
After she was paired with her adored Kevin Clifton on Saturday night, a visibly moved Calman apologised: “I’m sorry, I’m doing an Ore,” she said in a reference to the lachrymose habits of last year’s winner. Who could not be touched by the Glaswegian’s childlike excitement as her fridge-magnet fantasy sprang to glittering life before her?
Plenty of sad, twisted people, unfortunately. Calman, who is gay, name-checked her wife and joked that she hadn’t danced with a boy in years. It wasn’t enough to satisfy the judges of the Purity Olympics, that grim unsmiling bunch whose selfappointed task is to monitor how far short public figures fall from “appropriate”, politically correct behaviour. “Shame you aren’t using this platform to campaign for same-sex couples on Strictly and not giving in to gender norms,” one rebuked Calman.
The idea that the sugar-candy kingdom of Strictly is a good place to “campaign” for anything, except perhaps Bring Back Flavia, is evidently ludicrous. Well, it is if you’re a regular viewer of sound mind who loves this nicest of family shows for its twinkly escapism, its blissful lack of anything remotely political. By contrast, Calman’s critics see nothing wrong in trying to impose their view that the show should feature same-sex partnerships. In vain the comedian did point out that she has done a lot for gay rights, and just wanted to “have fun”.
Fun! Why have fun, Susan, love, when you could be forcing PC views down people’s throats until they choke? I see the odds are already narrowing (5/1 with William Hill) that Strictly will have at least one same-sex couple in the 2018 series.
Cue a collective eye-roll from the Silent Majority. Those of us who actually rather enjoyed dressing our little girl in her gingham summer uniform and didn’t feel we were reinforcing “gender norms”, just doing something that felt time-honoured and lovely. Those of us who may not agree with that Christian couple’s decision to sue a school for allowing a boy in their son’s class to wear a dress, but who can definitely sympathise with their view that it is confusing and wrong to encourage very young children to embrace transgenderism.
We were told that viewers of ITV’S This Morning were “outraged” when Nigel and Sally Rowe appeared on the show to explain their Christian position. Who was outraged exactly? A few of the Purity Olympics’ invigilators on Twitter who ticked off the Rowes for “being so judgmental”.
You may have noticed that only traditionalists or Right-wing people can be “judgmental”. When Leftwingers are judgmental, that is known as “calling out X’s behaviour”. And when the Rowes say that “boys are boys and girl are girls”, a point of view that was perfectly unobjectionable for 2,000 years, suddenly it’s a hate crime.
The Rowes probably felt that they needed to make a stand in a world that sneers at their religious values while embracing every unsettling trend as proof of progress. Anyone who fails to keep up, or who asks for time to adjust, can expect to be hounded.
People have had their fill of this kind of nonsense. As a rule, the British public are a moderate lot, who by temperament feel free to take the mickey out of our friends and our workmates, and have it taken out of us in return, with no harm done.
In short, we are not offended by all the things we are constantly assured we are offended by. Quite the contrary.
When Paul Hollywood is forced to make a grovelling apology for wearing a Nazi uniform at an ’Allo ’Allo fancy dress party 14 years ago, do we think the baker has committed a crime against humanity? No. We think: what a prat. Keep things in proportion. Worse things have happened. Opinions cool, people make up, someone makes a pot of tea and life goes on. A gay woman can have the time of her life dancing with a straight Kevin. To pretend otherwise is not just daft, disproportionate, and un-british – it’s downright offensive.
‘Who was outraged? A few of the Purity Olympics’ invigilators on Twitter’