Way of the World Michael Deacon
On Friday it will be four years since the death of Sir Roger Scruton. He’s remembered as a great conservative philosopher. Increasingly, though, it feels more accurate to call him a prophet.
If you have a copy of Against the Tide, a posthumous selection of his essays, read the one he wrote in 1997, in which he predicted how the country would change under New Labour.
Government policies, forecast Sir Roger, “will be chosen not [...] because there is a need for them. They will be chosen in order to advance the culture of equality and inclusion.”
As a result, “Victim status will become universally coveted. New classes of victims will be discovered by the week.”
In the arts, “The BBC will be given over to egalitarian propaganda”, and
“The position of the salon socialist establishment will be consolidated in all the major cultural institutions.” As for education, universities would become obsessed with “politically correct… pseudo-subjects” such as “race and gender studies”. Meanwhile, “Sex advisers will prowl the schools in search of innocence, in order to destroy it.”
And so on. He saw it all coming. Well, nearly all. Sir Roger’s prophecy ended with a deft jab at the outgoing government of John Major. “In short,” he concluded, “everything will proceed as it has done under the Tories, only faster.”
True enough, it did. But there’s one thing not even Sir Roger managed to foresee. Which is that under the subsequent Tory government, from 2010 until the present day, all of this would proceed 10 times faster still.
An organisation in Sussex has been teaching its staff about gender identity. Nothing unusual about that, these days. One thing, however, does puzzle me. The organisation, in this case, is the local fire brigade.
Try as I might, I’m struggling to fathom why learning about gender identity should be deemed essential for, of all people, firemen. Their job is to rescue the public from burning buildings. Why they would need to know whether the person they’re rescuing is non-binary, I’m not sure. Still, perhaps I’m behind the times. Scene: a fleet of fire engines screech to a halt in front of a burning block of flats. The captain leaps out and addresses the crowd of residents who are huddling together in the street.
Captain: “Is everyone safe and accounted for?”
Woman: “We all got out straight away. Except for one old man.”
Captain: “Now hang on just a moment. Are you absolutely certain that this individual is a man? What are his, her or their preferred pronouns?”
Woman: “Well, to be honest, I don’t think any of us have ever actually spoken to him – he lives alone, very quiet, keeps himself to himself. But he’s clearly a man.” Captain: “Clearly? How do you mean?” Woman: “Well, he’s got a beard.” Captain: “Have you any idea how ignorant you sound? This ‘old man’ could easily be a male-presenting transwoman. Or non-binary. Or gender-fluid, gender-neutral, genderqueer, gender-questioning, pangender, polygender, demigender, omnigender or agender. We learnt about it on a course.”
Woman: “Well, maybe. But shouldn’t you just hurry up and rescue him?”
Captain: “Stop saying ‘him’. Before we do anything else, we must urgently ascertain this individual’s pronouns. Otherwise, he, she, they, xe or zir could overhear us getting them wrong, and be deeply offended. Also, I could get in terrible trouble with HR.”
Woman: “But this is an emergency.” Captain: “It certainly is. That’s why I’m going to phone Stonewall first thing in the morning, to ask for their advice.”
Congratulations to ITV on the huge success of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. To the countless journalists who have reported on the Post Office scandal over the past 15 years, however, it must feel somewhat galling. They’ve received far less credit for exposing the scandal than ITV has for dramatising it. Indeed, the story struggled to capture widespread attention until now.
Still, it would be futile to complain. In our rapidly changing modern world, the media must be willing to adapt. So, to ensure greater exposure for important stories, I urge broadcasters to abolish their news bulletins, and replace them with a nightly drama serial, in which beloved household names act out the day’s events.
“You’re watching ITV. In tonight’s episode of The News, Westminster prepares for another by-election, Ukraine begs its Western allies for more aid, and pro-palestinian protesters renew calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. Starring Hugh Bonneville as Sir Keir Starmer, Danny Dyer as Volodymyr Zelensky, and Idris Elba as Gary Lineker.”