The latest crime? Making a cup of tea

MANY in the media treat this period as a bit of a joke, a lighthearted interlude and a spectator sport, like a holiday or a foreign crisis seen from afar.

I don’t. It scares me stiff. I think something has gone wrong deep inside the workings of this country. A fire long smouldering below decks has now burst into the open.

Let me share a letter I received from a reader: ‘I run a small coffee shop and when the state decreed, I reopened for takeaway (I was “allowed” also by the local council to use a small area outside my premises for people to sit down and drink their takeaways). Occasionally, when the weather has been bad or someone with an infirmity hasn’t been able to take their drink away, I have let them sit inside.

‘This morning I was visited by the police and warned. I was informed that two complaints had been made against me for serving drinks inside the premises. All for making someone a cup of tea and being human enough to let them have it inside. Last year my business was burgled and trashed and drug dealing was going on in the park that my business overlooks. And what happened then? Absolutely nothing. This isn’t the kind of country that my grandfather fought to preserve.’

At the same time, the political cleansing of our schools and universities continues ferociously. I hear confidentially of heavyweight intolerance of conservatives at Oxford, who have objected to the planned removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue there. Now I receive this from another university, where all academics have been ‘invited’ to an online ‘discussion’ intended to ‘disrupt structural factors that produce white privilege and systemic disadvantage…

‘We invite all staff to reflect on their identities and social positions, taking an “intersectional” approach. Participants will be given an opportunity to share perspectives and experiences of institutional racism at work, including any recommendations for change, with the University’s senior academic leadership team.’

I wouldn’t give much for the future careers of anybody who does not kowtow to this inquisition.