The right-on brigade refuse to see when they are being the baddies

There’s a 2006 sketch by David Mitchell and Robert Webb that in recent years has taken on a second life as an internet meme. The two comedians play SS officers, one of whom is starting to have doubts. “Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them?” asks Mitchell uneasily. “Hans… Are we the baddies?”

It’s funnier now than ever, because there are so many deluded baddies among us. I don’t just mean the obvious villains: the Trumps and Kims. I mean perfectly ordinary, wellmeaning people who – for want of a Totenkopf on their heads – can’t see that they are behaving like rotters.

Anti-vaxxers are the obvious example. This growing band of scientific refuseniks – responsible for the re-emergence of measles in Britain and America – springs chiefly from the demographic that is most convinced of its own virtue. Educated, middle-class and liberal, they believe in gentle parenting, dabble in New Age mysticism and dream of a socialist paradise. Yet when it comes to their very first – and simplest – social obligation as a parent, they balk.

Herd immunity is the most effective example of collective action ever devised. Some children – those with compromised immune systems, for example – can’t be vaccinated. They are also more likely to die if they catch measles. So they rely on the protection of the herd. If everyone else is vaccinated, the disease can’t get a foothold.

To refuse to vaccinate your child is not just stupid; it is the ultimate in selfish individualism. And yet, maddeningly, anti-vaxxers always trail an odour of sanctity and superior wisdom. “I won’t take any chances when it comes to my child’s health,” said a friend of mine – a vegan socialist – when I asked why she wouldn’t let her son have the flu vaccination. I felt so reproached by her implication (that I must be correspondingly cavalier with my own children’s health) that I wandered meekly away, without pointing out the metaphorical death’s head on her brow.

Virtue-signalling makes everyone blind to their own hypocrisy. Young people, we know, care a lot about the environment. Two weeks ago 15,000 of them skipped school to make these feelings known. I don’t doubt their sincerity. But placards won’t save the world: what’s needed is personal responsibility.

In Britain, people aged 18-34 drop more litter than any other age group. Wherever beautiful young things gather en masse they leave behind a scene of environmental apocalypse. UK music festivals produce 23,500 tonnes of rubbish every year, two-thirds of which goes straight to landfill. In despair, the organisers of Glastonbury Festival have just announced a ban on single-use plastic bottles. This is excellent news: festival-goers will now have to fill up their flasks from taps, like old people.

The gulf between creed and deed is evident everywhere. Those people who complain loudest about tribalism and cruelty on social media often take my breath away with their contemptuousness toward those they disagree with. Labour activists believe themselves to be innately good, and therefore refuse to acknowledge the anti-semitism in their ranks.

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity,” said André Gide. If only the baddies always wore hats. FOLLOW Jemima Lewis on Twitter @gemimsy;

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