I have worked in a government department for the past 33 years, but it was only in 2008 that I became aware that the unions not always on the side of their members. HR had sent round an intimidating email urging us all to complete our online diversity data: if we didn’t complete it by a specific date, we were told that out names would be added to “a list of non declarers”. That list would then be passed on to senior management. “In addition,” it said, “HR may contact non declarers by phone to update their details on the system there and then.”

Many of us immediately forwarded the email to our union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), both to complain about the threatening tone of the email and to ask why the department needed to know such things as our “sexual orientation” or “religious belief”. Many of us also logged into our online HR profile and removed any existing diversity data we’d already completed.

The majority of us heard nothing in response. But one regional union rep in our building not only received a reply — that essentially this was voluntary data management which then union would also like us to complete — but the message also contained some of the disparaging emails being sent between senior union officials.

One exchange read:

“Clarification does need sending out as soon as possible. The members who have raised this with me are, at the moment, quite adamant that they will not supply this information especially given the way the e-mail was worded. This attitude will obviously soften with time especially when the “non-compliants” are interrogated over the phone by HRS.  If a reasoned argument can be provided by us as to why they should freely give the required information, but explaining that you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, then HRS will still get their answers. But at least we don’t look like we are supporting the way they’re carrying out this caper which is the impression people are getting…”

Once the email came to light, our HR department apologised and emphasised that the data grab was voluntary. But in many ways, that was only the start. Fast forward to 2014 and the roll-out of unconscious bias training (UBT) throughout the civil service. This, as with the supplying of diversity data, wasn’t mandatory, though many were led to believe it was. Again I contacted my union to complain that management was forcing some kind of Orwellian thought-training upon us, that I was refusing to do it, and to ask them if they would back me if I faced pressure to complete it or was threatened with disciplinary action for refusing.

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By Timandra Harkness

In response, a PCS official phoned to tell me that the union backed the introduction of UBT. I was told the union’s officials had completed it, didn’t see my issue with it and would not support me if I faced any action from management. To which I replied: if that was the case, then he and the union were part of the problem.

But it was only after searching through the PCS website that I realised how much of the problem the union really was. I quickly came across several articles and even a conference motion from 2013 that demanded UBT be made mandatory for all staff. In effect, PCS were demanding intrusion into our very thought processes and, in the process, handing employers a means of disciplining us based on highly politicised, subjective and flawed evidence of “unconscious bias”.

Then, fortunately, in December last year it was announced that that UBT was to be scrapped throughout the civil service in England, after a Government Equality Office investigation found that it can actually “backfire” and reinforce stereotypes and biases. In any normal world, the scrapping of UBT would have been praised by those who value freedom of thought and conscience in the workplace.

Not so the deputy general secretary of Prospect, a union for civil service professionals, who told the Guardian: “While there is a debate as to the effectiveness of unconscious bias training, simply scrapping it without setting out alternative ways to combat discrimination in the work place is not acceptable.” His concern was shared by the assistant general secretary of the senior civil service FDA union, who told the BBC’s Politics Live that “to remove it without replacing it with anything seems absolutely illogical”.

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By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

But the story doesn’t end there. Perhaps in anticipation of UBT being scrapped, or aware of its discrediting, the civil service unions were busy behind the scenes collaborating on a replacement — in the form of a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) eLearning module, which was rolled out to us in September 2020. However, unlike with its predecessor, at least this time the collaboration between the unions and management was stated openly; we were informed that we had until the 31 December 2020 to complete it. (I am yet to do so.)

No doubt HR thought that highlighting the unions’ collaboration would give the training greater credibility. But to me it was evidence of our unions’ insultingly low opinion of their members and the wider workforce. That is, rather than seeing us as a collective solution to workplace problems, including in tackling discrimination, we are made to feel like would-be bigots who need to be saved from ourselves.

So, to return to the UCU’s disgraceful lack of support for Kathleen Stock, I would have been more shocked if her union had supported her right to think what she likes and express those opinions freely. But until the unions overcome their own conscious prejudices against the workforce, and stop collaborating with management to impose increasingly discredited diversity initiatives upon us, don’t expect them to defend freedom of thought and conscience in the workplace anytime soon.

One of the best, and most carefully listened to speeches, was the one delivered by Paul Embery, on behalf of Trade Unionists Against the EU. In it, he reiterated his position on the Brexit debate – that democracy must be defended.

I have known Paul for a number of years: he is a firefighter and member of the National Executive of the Fire Brigade’s Union and I chaired the FBU’s Parliamentary group. I also know him as a long-standing Labour Party member; he has spoken at Labour Party conference fringe meetings for many years. He also writes compellingly for this website.

He is a socialist with deeply felt principles and an active supporter of Blue Labour — a grouping that wants to return the Party to its original roots and values of work, family and community. He is also passionately and vocally pro-Leave. At the rally when he was introduced, no mention was made of his elected office or even his membership of the FBU. He spoke in his own time and not on behalf of the FBU.

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Nonetheless, shortly after the rally, Matt Wrack, the General Secretary of the FBU, issued a statement which said that it was outrageous that so-called Trade Union officials and Labour MPs attended joint rallies with Nigel Farage and others on the nationalist Right. In no uncertain terms, he stated: “They are a disgrace to the traditions of the Labour movement.”

His statement so angered me, that I immediately resigned from chairing the FBU Parliamentary group. In my resignation statement I pointed out that to imply that people such as Claire Fox and Brendan O’Neill, both of whom were at the rally and had spoken, were nationalist Right was an outrage.

Matt Wrack, undeterred, went on to make a formal complaint against Paul. This was duly investigated by the Vice-President of the FBU, Andy Noble, and Paul was suspended from the executive council. A few weeks later, at an internal disciplinary hearing, Paul was removed from his position and banned from holding office for two years. The executive council ruled that in criticising anti-Brexit Labour movement leaders during his speech, he had undermined the union’s own stance on the issue and thus acted in a way “prejudicial to the interests of the union”.

Last week, he lost his appeal by a narrow margin of just six votes out of 112.

Matt Wrack has personally led the charge against Paul. It’s odd, given that he has spent his career publicly championing freedom of speech, that he should take such a stance.

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By Paul Embery

This is the same Matt Wrack who in the past has said:

“To address the huge challenges our movement faces today, we need to build a culture of debate and democracy which accepts that there will be different views and sharp difference of opinion. Democracy must include the right to express those differences.”

It is disappointing, too, given that Wrack has always argued that genuine political disagreements should never be resolved by resorting to the rule book. So why would he take against Paul in this fashion?

There has certainly been much support for Paul and his writings and tweets over the past year, who was seen as one of the only credible challengers for the position of General Secretary when it is up for re-election next year.

But Wrack’s vendetta against such a stalwart campaigner for the rights of the worker has done huge damage to the reputation of the FBU. There has been an outpouring of anger against the leadership from outraged grassroots members. One member Tweeted: “I would say it’s the union’s loss, but it’s the members that ultimately suffer when decisions like this are taken, because they no longer have people to represent them fully.”

In an unprecedented intervention, the Deputy Commissioner and Director of Operations at the London Fire Brigade, Tom George, said: “I never interfere with union affairs but occasionally it doesn’t hurt to share one’s opinion. I feel the way Paul Embery has been treated recently by his own Union is appalling and dare I say it scandalous.”

Paul’s supposed crime was to oppose the FBU’s Brexit position – but this is no longer an issue about views on the European Union. The treatment of him is not about Leave or Remain. In fact, it has united Leavers and Remainers who believe in the principles of freedom of expression and the right of everyone to hold to their personal beliefs. Paul himself has stated the conduct of the union’s leadership throughout this episode has been deeply worrying.

I spoke to Paul before I sat down to write this. He was resolute and quietly furious:

“The investigation into me by the union’s vice-president was particularly disgraceful, and worse than anything I have ever seen by any employer. It can only be described as a shameless political witch-hunt,

It deviated wildly from the original complaint about my speech at the rally, and even sought to intrude into personal areas of my life, such as demanding information relating to my private income. It amounted to a blatant dig for dirt in an effort to blacken my name. Without a shred of evidence, the vice-president accused me of misusing union funds – a grave and sinister accusation which, in the end, collapsed when it was found to be utterly baseless. It was an indication of how far some people were prepared to go in an effort to discredit me.”

Matt Wrack’s spiteful actions on behalf of the Union represent an attack on democracy itself, not just one heroic firefighter. Nor will this be the end of the matter. I am certain the majority of the union’s membership will condemn what has happened to Paul and ultimately Wrack will be answerable to them. Paul served the union proudly for 20 years; it should be ashamed of this despicable betrayal.

Overlooking the overlooked

James Bloodworth, journalist and author of the Orwell Prize nominated book Hired

If only May had acted upon those promises she made in that first speech as leader – the one that has become reduced to her ‘citizens of nowhere’ dig – things could have been so different.

In that keynote, delivered to a conference just after the Brexit vote, she surprised all the complacent neo-liberals in her party by lamenting the “division and unfairness all around”.

“Our society should work for everyone,” she told conference delegates, before running through a list of areas in which it wasn’t.

“If you can’t afford to get onto the property ladder… if your pay has stagnated for several years in a row… if you’ve been trying to say things need to change for years and your complaints fall on deaf ears, it doesn’t feel like it’s working for you.”

May took digs at fat cats, tax avoiders and “citizens of nowhere”, pledging to tackle the injustices of low pay and precarious work.

The rest is history. All these promises fell by the wayside as her premiership progressed. Sure, the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices – which May’s government commissioned – did come up with some interesting and proactive suggestions. And the government promised to at least consult on all but one of Matthew Taylor’s recommendations. But then… nothing.

This was her great opportunity. This is where she could have made a difference to the lives of so many of those people who had voted in the referendum for change. But like so much else, workplace reform was gradually subsumed by Brexit.

So Brexit created Theresa, then destroyed Theresa. And it also contributed to her greatest failure as PM: that signal failure to significantly improve the lives of the ‘left behinds’ she pledged to serve back in 2016.

Her intransigence

Polly Mackenzie, director of Demos

Theresa May’s failure is all Ken Clarke’s fault. He accidentally gave her a brand identity when he was caught on camera calling her a “bloody difficult woman”. She loved it. Her team loved it. Conservative MPs who spent their teenage years pining over a Margaret Thatcher poster loved it. Bloody difficult woman, Mrs May thought: that’s who to be if I want to be loved.

She was always intransigent, as Home Secretary. But once “bloody difficult” got hung around her neck, she revelled in it, sticking to positions as rigidly as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, who got rusted into paralysis by unexpected rainfall.

She fought and argued, unblinkingly, for her withdrawal agreement long after it was dead, long after the body was rolled through the crematorium and the ashes were scattered.

I can understand why she clung to the belief that intransigence would, in the end, pay a political dividend. It seems to be the path to popularity in politics today. The No Deal Brexiteers refuse to budge, even if that risks no Brexit at all – and yet their tribe love them. Jeremy Corbyn built an entire political career out of never changing his mind and young people chant his name at festivals.

The problem, Theresa, is that intransigence only works for ideologues. You can’t be rigidly pragmatic, any more than the Tin Man could start dancing without having his joints oiled. In your resignation speech, you stressed the importance of compromise: the whole point of compromising is that you have to bring people together. If no-one will join you on the dance floor, you need to find a different song. We can only hope the next Prime Minister will do so.

The hostile environment

Bidisha, writer, broadcaster and film-maker

Theresa May’s biggest failure was as Home Secretary, not as Prime Minister. In 2013, she gave a now-notorious speech at the Home Office, introducing the central tenets of the ‘hostile environment’. To me – and this is just my opinion – it was a racist, aggressive, inhumane and sadistic warning. The hostile environment has persisted since then, unabated. It has fanned the flames of (what I see as) an increasingly openly racist, xenophobic and insular England. It has worsened with Brexit – for which it laid the groundwork.

I’ve reminded myself of that Home Office speech when, over the last three years, I’ve started feeling sympathy for Theresa May as Prime Minister. Well – not sympathy, exactly, but a kind of wonder at how she manages to get up every morning, put together an outfit and get through her day of work. She inherited the ultimate ‘glass cliff’ job: cleaning up a man’s stupid mess. David Cameron’s opinion poll on Brexit was callous and dangerous.

May might have convinced herself that she should and must and could ‘deliver Brexit’. She might have shown a steeliness, and an impressive poker face, in calling a snap election that caused her to lose her mandate – and in repeatedly forcing votes on the same unsatisfactory deal. But she does not have the fine shrewdness and responsiveness of the true political survivor – and neither did her predecessor.

May’s resignation speech showed, finally, an awareness of her own isolation and powerlessness. But ultimately, this is a mess of Cameron’s making. Brexit is a mistake and a catastrophe that poisons anyone who touches it, be they Tory, Labour or anything else. May’s departure is simply another inevitable episode in an unpleasant and unnecessary crisis – one that reflects the growing darkness of the political landscape.

The backstop

Helen Thompson, professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge

Theresa May’s departure was probably inevitable from the moment she lost her gamble to establish a Conservative majority big enough to get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons.

But she made one crucial misjudgement after the general election. In December 2017, she accepted the EU’s demand that the terms of the UK’s departure include a commitment that nothing would change on the Irish border. After an uproar, she redefined her backstop so that it applied to the whole of the UK, rather than just Northern Ireland – but this alteration left unaltered the commitment to prioritise the Irish border.

Whether the move was justifiable or not, in subordinating Brexit to another claim, May damaged the supply and confidence arrangement with the DUP; gave her ERG critics a permanent line of attack; fuelled the concern among part of the Leave coalition that she was pursuing Brexit in name only; and gave those in Parliament who want to stop Brexit reason to think it could be abandoned. In this political environment, she needed considerable good fortune.

The Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, tried to help her with the concessions made before the second meaningful vote, but did not reckon on Geoffrey Cox’s intervention. John Bercow repeatedly tried to thwart her – and managed to, right up until his refusal to take Gareth Snell and Lisa Nandy’s amendment on the third meaningful vote. But Cox was articulating the backstop’s legal logic, and the Speaker had his opportunity because the backstop gave anti-Brexit MPs a justification to keep fighting.

She chose in December 2017 a way of delivering Brexit that had little chance of success and has now paid the price.

Her empty words

Paul Embery, firefighter and trade union official

Theresa May’s finest two moments as prime minister were her inaugural and valedictory speeches. The rest was abject failure.

Her maiden address on the steps of Downing Street in 2016 hit the sort of unifying note that appealed not just to traditional Tory voters but also to those in the working-class Labour heartlands. She spoke of leading a One Nation government, tackling poverty and putting the interests of working-class families before those of the rich and powerful.

This was buttressed by her first Tory conference speech as prime minister, in which she railed against the international elites, untrammelled markets and the concept of being a “citizen of nowhere”. It was a pitch towards those who were, let’s say, not entirely sold on the idea of a liberal, cosmopolitan, borderless world dominated by global corporations.

She had parked her tanks squarely on Labour’s lawn – and some of us inside the Labour party saw danger ahead.

But the rhetoric didn’t match the reality, and her premiership quickly reverted to stale Tory dogma. Most destructively, she continued David Cameron’s programme of austerity, which had always been as needless as it was damaging, and caused suffering to the very people she claimed to be standing up for.

In her departure speech, she mentioned the tragedy of Grenfell Tower and the need to ensure that such a disaster never happens again. These words will ring a bit hollow to those, like me, who work in the fire and rescue service and have witnessed the savage cuts that have been inflicted on our industry over recent years.

On Brexit, she made all the right sounds early on. She had no choice but to affirm that the UK would leave the EU, if necessary, without a deal (frankly, no prime minister could do otherwise without handing an effective veto to the EU). But when the time came, she bottled it. And from that moment, her credibility was shot.

Her final address emphasised the value of compromise. It has its place, of course. But in trying to please everyone, you sometimes end up pleasing no-one. As, in the end, she discovered to her cost.

Her untruthfulness

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and Director of the Mile End Institute

After the initial surge of sympathy provoked in my sentimental old soul by Theresa May’s tears at the end of her speech in Downing Street, all I could think of Oscar Wilde’s words on Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop: “One must have a heart of stone,” Wilde wrote, “to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

It was a speech of epic self-delusion and self-justification, followed by a veritable flood of hypocrisy from many of those who had made her life – indeed, all our lives – a misery for the last two years. Ultimately, though, they aren’t to blame for the mess the country and the Conservative Party is in today. She is. Where, then, did it all go so terribly wrong?

It was as soon as she stepped through the door of Number Ten Downing Street. Instead of turning round and telling people, particularly in her own party, the truth – namely that the referendum was a close run thing, that people had voted Leave for a myriad of different reasons, that the Irish border was bound to prove problematic, and that, more generally, the EU-27 weren’t going to allow the UK to have its cake and eat it – she decided to present herself as Brexitier-than-thou.

Quite why we can only guess. There are a number of possibilities, even leaving aside the temptation to cast her erstwhile adviser, Nick Timothy as the serpent.

Perhaps it was pure partisan opportunism – the thought of the Tories pulling off Brexit and pulling in many of the four million voters who had supported UKIP in 2015. Perhaps it was the need to prove her personal bona fides after playing the role of reluctant Remainer in the referendum campaign. Perhaps it was her tendency, after five years as Home Secretary, to see everything through the prism of immigration: Vote Leave stressed it; therefore the referendum was won on it; therefore free movement must end; therefore hard Brexit.

From that initial decision everything else flowed.

Her lack of persuasiveness

Jenny McCartney, Journalist and Author

I do not doubt that Mrs May loves her country, as she avowed this morning, and has a strong conception of duty and public service – why else would she have so stoically endured the vitriol constantly poured upon her? The trouble was that the country did not feel as if Mrs May loved it. In that she resembled one of those parents who find themselves tragically estranged from a child for whom they had a powerful internal affection, but seemed unable fully to translate that affection convincingly into words or, often, deeds. 

It was Mrs May who, in 2002, warned that the Conservative Party was in danger of becoming ‘the nasty party’. Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, her delay in assuring EU nationals of their secure future in the UK indicated a lack of emotional intelligence at a time when the country badly needed such direction. So too did the human distress caused by the Windrush scandal, which stemmed from policies put in place during her time as Home Secretary.

The ‘precariat,’ despite her post-referendum assurances, have felt no more secure under her time in office. Her task of enacting Brexit was a thankless and fiendishly difficult one, but under her direction the UK, at key points, has also seemed an unnecessarily ungenerous place. 

May has great doggedness – an important quality in political life – but an absence of persuasiveness. That proved a dangerous combination. The doggedness repeatedly drew her back to preferred solutions – but without the ability to persuade others of their merits and absorb their concerns, repetition did not improve the outcome. Yet if May’s flaw has, in large part, been sincerity without communication, we must guard now against falling into the opposite trap, and possibly a worse one: a Prime Minister who can communicate without sincerity.

The system

Peter Franklin, editor of UnHerd’s UnPacked column

The political obituaries have already been written: Theresa May was a terrible Prime Minister.

Well, they’re right about that – but for the wrong reasons. Her mistakes and weaknesses, though many and significant, were not crucial mistakes or fatal weaknesses. They did not make all the difference. Rather the most obvious failure of her premiership is a failure of the entire political system: government, opposition, media, every bit of the machine – all the way up to the EU itself, whose collective, history-changing decision it was to make an example, not an ally, of Brexit Britain.

Our own politicians have made that pathetically easy for them. There is not a single faction of any size in this parliament that has shown genuine leadership on Brexit – and precious few individuals. They have wilfully confused compromise with betrayal, and principle with their own self-interest.

Together they made Theresa May’s job an impossible one. It’s hard to look back over the flowchart of her decisions and identify an alternative pathway that would have produced a different result. Given the system she was operating within, she was doomed from the moment she lost her majority – and she’d quite possibly have been doomed if she hadn’t called the snap election.

But this is not to absolve her from all responsibility. Rather, what she’s to blame for is not primarily the decisions she made, but those she didn’t make. The original sin of her premiership was not doing anything about the system that made her downfall inevitable.

There were attacks on the previous regime, but they were petty ones – from the very public humiliation of George Osborne to the ‘not invented here’ abandonment of promising policy initiatives like the Northern Powerhouse and the Life Chances Strategy. At the same time, she left in place many of the worst policies of the Cameron era – such as the counter-productive ‘Help to Buy’ scheme for aspiring homeowners (which is in fact a subsidy for the big developers); the sinking student loan system; and the white elephants of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, HS2 and Heathrow expansion.

Despite promises of “an economy that works for everyone”, there was no obvious sign of any fundamental shift in the priorities of the system – not in infrastructure investment from London to our other great cities; not in education spending from the bloated university system to the under-resourced technical education sector; not in the tax burden the parasitic rentier class places on those struggling for a stake in the productive economy.

From Whitehall and Westminster, where the power-hoarding and hucksterish culture of politics became more entrenched than ever, to the still left-behind communities that Theresa May imagined would swing behind her insubstantial rhetoric, it became obvious that, in her words, “nothing has changed”.

The failure to deliver Brexit is both a symbol – and ultimately the result – of that much bigger failure.

In the aftermath of that outrage, the Board of Deputies of British Jews – among others – expressed their concern that the phrase was in and of itself anti-Semitic. Since then, the Board has met with Ms Braverman and announced that it has discerned that there was in fact nothing “intentionally anti-Semitic” about her comments, and expressed sorrow about any hurt having been caused to the MP (who happens to have a Jewish husband).

It is unlikely that any lesson will be learned about claiming to hear things beneath or above the pitch of normal words. Not least because there is now a phalanx of self-appointed bodies and individuals dedicated to this peculiar form of voluntary service.

One oddity of the whole business of trying to hear dog-whistles is very basic: if you can hear the whistle, you must surely be the dog. It is the nature of the analogy that a non-canid cannot hear what the dog hears.  So to be able to hear on a whole different aural wave-length to everyone else – to be peculiarly attuned to the tones of the time and to be able to explain to everyone else – is one heck of a power to bestow upon yourself.

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By Douglas Murray

Which brings me to Paul Embery. I suppose I should state first – since journalism is a trade rightly under suspicion from the reading public – that Embery is not a friend of mine. I do not believe I have ever met him, though I may have once stood in the same room as him.

Nevertheless, we write for the same publication and that is the sort of thing that raises eyebrows if one rushes to another’s defence. So, I should probably add that Embery is generally regarded as being of the Left. Whereas close readers will have noticed that I am not always seen as being of that throng. Embery is a trade union man, which I am not. I suppose we have other differences.

But I have read him ever since he began publishing at UnHerd because I think he is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time. British journalism is not always an open race. In the talent stakes the best talent does not always rise (apologies if this sounds chippy). Often it gets nowhere near the starting blocs. Outside of the hereditary bloc in the House of Lords, journalism in Britain may be one of the most hereditary professions in the land. So as well as giving a cheer whenever any talented voice breaks through, I have to admit that I give an added cheer whenever somebody who was not themselves born into a family of journos breaks through.

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By Tom Chivers

Which is quite enough throat-clearing before pointing out the unfairness of the treatment allotted to Embery this week. It was meted out after he tweeted a response to a folk singer called Mike Harding who had said ‘A nation is not a home’. To this Embery replied, “I fear this encapsulates the divide in our society – between a rootless, cosmopolitan, bohemian middle-class… a rooted, communitarian, patriotic working-class.”

It’s a point with which one may agree or disagree, but of course we live in an age where disagreement is not enough. Character assassination must stand in for debate, and so it was with Embery, with the charge being led by people who claim to hear things with the aural capabilities of a dog.

For example Labour MP Alex Sobel immediately responded, “Literally an anti-semitic trope used by Stalin the culmination of which saw many good bundists imprisoned by East European Communist regimes (including my grandfather) just what I needed to see after the @JewishLabour AGM.  Stop othering Jews.”

Since Mr Sobel is so sensitive to echoes of anti-Semitism that he can find it in two words separated by a comma, then you would have thought he would long ago have heard them in the political party of which he remains a member. Other Labour MPs have described Labour as so “institutionally racist” that they have had to leave the party. Yet Sobel stays. How you can detect anti-Semitism in adjectives online and bypass the klaxon of it on the benches is a matter for serious amazement.

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Why Titania is perfect for our times

By Douglas Murray

David Aaronovitch of The Times also decided to join in the lambasting of Embery. He did so by implying that Embery must lurk in very dark places if he can so easily regurgitate these particular two words and separate them with a comma. To which Embery rather smartly replied that of course not all of us spend our lives suffering from the same problems as recovering Stalinists.

Aside from being a neat rejoinder, there is a serious truth underneath this. Everybody knows that people can be extra-sensitive – sometimes over-sensitive – about characteristics which they have which they have at some point in the past had used against them.

A similar dynamic inevitably exists among those who were once devotees of totalitarian movements. Although some people who were once fascists or communists are genuinely able to slip the mindset, not all are. Many slip from the central beliefs but have to spend the rest of their lives assuming that everybody is as vulnerable to the most crazed and dangerous ideas as they once were. A more sensible interpretation would be that it requires a rather special set of character defects – to put it no more rudely – to find oneself in the grip of such ideologies in these times. Most people manage to avoid it.

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Why does the Left sneer at the traditional working class?

By Paul Embery

Anyhow – the censorship mob have had their way. The trade union of which Embery is a part – the Fire Brigades Union – has ordered him to dial back his online activities. Presumably there is now less chance of him using the wrong adjectives or punctuation and more chance of global peace and harmony.

But this constitutes yet another victory for a contrived hyper-sensitivity and that must surely at some stage reach its limit? If people honestly believed that Embery was an anti-Semite then they should have come out with it and said so. The fact that they did not is because they knew that to do so would be wrong, and that it would make them look ridiculous.

Perhaps it is time to mention how ridiculous they also look seeing phantoms where they do not exist. Perhaps they might also reconsider their determined distortion of the nation’s ability to hear things which certainly do exist but which normal human ears are perfectly able to discern.