Way of the World

When the BBC described the murderer Scarlet Blake simply as “a woman”, the more generously inclined among its viewers might have put it down to human error. After all, it’s possible that the BBC’s journalists were genuinely unaware that Blake is male. Had they known this, surely they would have said “a trans woman”, in order to avoid giving viewers the false impression that a brutally violent and sexually motivated crime had been committed by someone female. Wouldn’t they?

Sadly, I doubt it. I suspect they knew full well that Blake was male, and consciously chose to say “a woman”. This is the only conclusion I can draw from the BBC’s subsequent treatment of Justin Webb. Because the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit has upheld a complaint against the Today programme’s co-presenter for using the following phrase.

“Trans women – in other words, males.”

Every syllable of that phrase is factually accurate. All trans women are, by definition, male. If they were female, they wouldn’t be trans women – they would be “cisgender” (ie, biological) women. Mr Webb was simply making this clear, for the benefit of any listeners who were not fully abreast of trans terminology.

The BBC, however, has ruled that Mr Webb breached impartiality rules, because, in using the above phrase, he “gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area”.

But this is absurd. Mr Webb did not endorse a viewpoint. He merely stated a fact. The

BBC, therefore, is censuring a journalist for the crime of telling the truth.

I wonder what George Orwell – himself a former BBC journalist – would have made of it. As it happens, a statue of Orwell stands outside Broadcasting House, the BBC’s headquarters. The wall behind this statue is engraved with one of his most famous maxims. “If liberty means anything at all,” reads the engraving, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

The Executive Complaints Unit, however, appears to take a different view. Evidently there are some people who must not be told what they do not want to hear, even when it’s factually indisputable.

Of course, if it’s wrong for BBC journalists to give “the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area”, the Executive Complaints Unit should also be censuring those who called Scarlet Blake “a woman”.

Do we think this is likely? I can’t wait to find out.

Two things puzzle me about the plan to stage performances of a West End play for audiences consisting exclusively of black people. The first is the justification given on the play’s website. It explains that, at these so-called “Black Out nights”, black theatre-goers will for once be “free from the white gaze”.

I was rather taken aback by this. Do theatre-goers who are white really spend the duration of plays gazing at theatre-goers who are black? I myself go to the theatre only very rarely. But when I do go, I much prefer to gaze at what’s happening on stage. I find that this offers far better entertainment. Not to mention better value for money. If you’ve paid £300 a ticket to see Sarah Jessica Parker’s current play at the Savoy, it seems somewhat wasteful to spend the entire two hours and 20 minutes ignoring her so that you can gaze at other members of the audience.

What puzzles me even more about the planned “Black Out nights”, however, is this. The star of the play in question is Kit Harington – who is white. So how will organisers ensure that the black audience is free from Mr Harington’s white gaze?

Perhaps, for the duration of the performance, they will make him wear a blindfold. That should work. Then again, they would also have to place blindfolds on any white staff the theatre employs. For example, in the theatre’s bar.

The trouble is, the blindfolded staff would inevitably end up spilling the audience’s drinks and dropping their ice creams, very possibly on to the audience members themselves. And any white cleaners, also being blindfolded, wouldn’t be able to mop the spillages up, and would very likely go stumbling into audience members, causing yet more spillages.

As a result, the audience’s clothes would be ruined. And so, when they left the theatre, they’d be even more likely to be gazed at.

Girls at a school in Kent have been missing classes because they aren’t allowed to wear false eyelashes. So, to get them to return to their desks, the headmaster has taken firm and decisive action.

He’s announced that, from now on, they will be allowed to wear false eyelashes, after all. He asks only that the lashes be “discreet”.

What a remarkable development. In the old days, schoolchildren had to obey the rules whether they liked them or not. And if they skipped school, the authorities did not try to coax them back by cravenly rewriting the rules in the skivers’ favour.

Last year the Beano underwent a “makeover” to bring it up to date with the modern world. I haven’t seen it. But presumably, whenever Dennis the Menace plays truant, the headmaster offers to let him fire his catapult at the teachers, or hurl stink bombs during assembly. Provided, of course, that the resulting stench is suitably discreet.