A challenge to woke orthodoxy that caught the public mood
To say I was in a state of panic on the way to Liverpool for my maiden Question Time outing on Thursday would be an understatement. I imagined vomiting onstage, trying to speak and croaking, wardrobe malfunctions, furious audience members throwing tomatoes, and more. I considered pulling a sickie or emigrating.
Yet the experience defied my expectations; with a rare Right-leaning panel, a terrific audience posing intelligent questions, a generally polite and enjoyable conversation without the point-scoring tedium that often accompanies such shows.
Perhaps the most astonishing revelation, however, was the presence of a non-woke actor on the panel. My new friend Laurence Fox, who perfectly captured public resentment of stifling identity politics and the culture of permanent offence. He skewered the hypocrisies of pontificating celebrities and disconnected politicians. And, like Ricky Gervais’s tirade against the Hollywood elite at the Golden Globes, his words found a receptive audience.
When asked his tip for Labour leader, Fox nominated Sir Keir Starmer, prompting Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti to accuse him of sexism, amid groans from the audience. “Let me rewind,” he rejoined. ”Any of the women then, is that better?”
Refreshingly, he has since doubled down on his remarks. After being instructed by one Social Justice Warrior on Twitter to “educate” himself with some appropriately enlightened reading material, Fox replied: “I’d genuinely rather eat a light bulb.” Humour is a great puncturer of idiotic progressivism – those on the Right should deploy it more often. Last month, Jo Swinson put her gender front and centre of the Lib Dem campaign, blaming sexism for her exclusion from leadership debates. Voters didn’t buy it.
Could the 2020s see an upsurge of full-scale rebellion against stultifying wokeness?
There are lessons in this for the Conservatives, who should note the support which sheer commonsense attracts. Though Fox spoilt his ballot with luvviedom on Thursday night, he tapped into a much deeper disenchantment.