Standing up to woke

The UK Government is one of very few in the West to stand up to cancel culture and identity politics, and in an intelligent manner, too. In the case of contentious history, as the culture secretary Oliver Dowden writes on this page, there is no sense in tearing down statues or airbrushing the past. The aim instead should be to “retain and explain”, and the new Heritage Advisory Board is a sensible development that should remind museums and other cultural organisations of their responsibilities to safeguard the nation’s heritage.

It is positive, too, that ministers are clearly seeking to reverse what has come to look like a Left-wing takeover of many public sector organisations. It has been frustrating that, even under Conservative governments, these positions have been filled almost exclusively by a narrow group of people often holding elite metropolitan views that are out of sync with the majority of the population. The Government is also expected to amend regulations and planning guidance to ensure that separate lavatories for men and women are installed in new buildings or those being developed, to protect the “security, dignity and safety” of women.

There will be an angry pushback against these proposals from the Left, and it would be easy for the Government to give in, for the sake of a quiet life or in the belief that embracing politically correct ideas is necessary to win elections. That would be a mistake. Boris Johnson has shown that you can build a new majority by harnessing cultural conservatism – not social conservatism, per se, but patriotism and a very British commitment to common sense.