Double standards

Last year, the American television anchor Megyn Kelly appeared to offer her audience an explanation for wearing blackface at Hallowe’en parties. When she was younger, she said, “that was OK as long as you were dressing up as a character”. Her show was dropped. Whether one agrees with what she said or not – and it is obvious that Ms Kelly hurt many viewers – the sanction for seeming to defend blackface was swift.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, actually painted his face to impersonate an ethnic minority not once but three times in his youth. Did his party turn on him? Did he resign in disgrace? Not yet. But then Ms Kelly is a conservative whereas Mr Trudeau is Left-wing, and the rules are different.

The Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has almost admitted to painting his face when he was younger but is still in office: this is a man who accused his Republican opponent in the 2017 Virginia campaign of using “racist rhetoric”. Senior Democrats have called for Mr Northam to quit, but his resilience testifies to the doublestandards of a Left that believes itself to be above the very rules that it expects everyone else to live by.

Mr Trudeau presents himself as a champion for the average Canadian, for diversity and equality. But the only reason he has his current job is because he is the son of a former, legendary, vastly more intellectual prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. It is astonishing how many egalitarians in principle turn out to be aristocrats in practice. Mr Trudeau has thus far been the beneficiary of a privileged past. The interesting question is whether or not he will now be judged on it.