Way of the World Michael Deacon

As a rule, people tend not to like being accused of racism. There appears, however, to be one group of people who actually do. White, middle-class liberals.

In fact, they’ll pay you to do it. It might sound unlikely. But it’s true. Take the fashionable American phenomenon known as “Race to Dinner”: essentially, a special kind of dinner party at which a group of white liberals happily hand over $2,500 (£2,000) to be told by the non-white organisers “to accept their racism”.

A similar trend can be seen in publishing. Ever since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the bestseller charts have been bursting with books about white supremacy, “white fragility”, etc. And almost all of them, as far as I can see, are being bought by white, middle-class liberals.

Still, even liberals draw the line somewhere. They may enjoy being called racist in their own free time.

But they certainly don’t want to be called racist at work. Which is why, as reported this week, the civil service has spent £160,000 of taxpayers’ money teaching its staff how to avoid being racist by mistake. Apparently, staff have been told that rolling your eyes is a “microaggression” that can be interpreted as “racial discrimination”.

It would be easy to ridicule this. Personally, though, I view it as an exciting opportunity. Hence why I’m launching a training firm of my own. At highly competitive prices, I’m available to inform civil servants that stroking your chin is transphobic, yawning is colonialist, and smiling is a hate crime. I haven’t yet decided what biting your fingernails is. Possibly misogynoir. Or maybe fatphobia.

If this is the world we have to live in now, we might as well try to make some money out of it.

Dame Angela Eagle, a senior Labour MP, is worried about younger voters – and with good reason. According to a poll, an alarming 61 per cent of British people aged 18-34 say they yearn for “a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Parliament/elections”. But to what does Dame Angela attribute this disturbing thirst for authoritarian rule?

She says it’s due to a “lack of education about democracy in our schools” – and “online grooming” by the “alt-Right”.

The “alt-Right”? Is she quite sure? I know that Labour MPs love to blame all of society’s ills on sinister Right-wingers. In this particular case, though, I’m not convinced that Dame Angela has thought it through. Because, if she’d care to glance at polls of voting intention,she’ll see that today’s 18-34-year-olds aren’t listening to anyone on the Right. Only the merest sliver of them support the Tories or Reform – while around 60 per cent of them support Labour. Almost exactly the same as the proportion who are apparently lusting for dictatorship.

All of which suggests that, if the “alt-Right” are indeed trying to “groom” the young, they aren’t having an awful lot of success. Because today’s young adults aren’t Right-wing authoritarians. They’re Left-wing authoritarians.

Not that this should surprise us. Despite all its squawking about “compassion” and “inclusivity”, modern progressivism is, at its heart, ferociously dictatorial. Hence why self-proclaimed progressives are forever trying to get people sacked or no-platformed for expressing the wrong opinion.

Mercifully, though, there is one crumb of comfort. The young may be clamouring for “a strong leader”. But instead, what they’re going to get is Sir Keir Starmer.

Until now, I’d always groaned at

Sir Keir’s insipid dithering. But in the circumstances, perhaps we should be grateful for it.

Last year in The Spectator, Suella Braverman – sworn foe of “the

Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati” – revealed her favourite sitcom. Guess what it was. Till Death Us Do Part? Love Thy Neighbour?

No. It was Curb Your Enthusiasm.

On the face of it, an unexpected choice. After all, Curb – the US comedy which returns on Monday for its final series – is a show beloved of the trendy, high-minded metropolitan types that Mrs Braverman deplores. Larry David, its creator and star, is a vocal Democrat who loathes Donald Trump. According to a biography of Elon Musk, Mr David once confronted the Tesla tycoon and lambasted him for voting Republican.

Even so, I don’t think it’s at all odd that Mrs Braverman should love

Curb. If anything, it’s odd that liberals should. Because, although they don’t seem to have noticed, the humour in

Curb is fundamentally Right-wing. I don’t suppose Mr David sees it that way. But it’s true. The essential message of practically every episode is: “You can’t say anything nowadays. Everyone’s so easily offended. Especially these young snowflakes. It’s political correctness gone mad.” Thematically, it’s not much different from a Richard Littlejohn column.

Yes, the central character – a comic caricature of Mr David himself – is petty, self-centred and constantly shooting himself in the foot. None the less, you always find yourself siding with him when some hysterically over-sensitive nitwit takes offence at something he’s said.

In spirit, therefore, Curb is one of the few conservative comedies on TV. Even if it isn’t meant to be.