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Prudes, prigs and the menace of a PC code
Prince Harry may be third in line to the throne. But it is hard to see why anyone in his right mind would want to be the monarch of a country bursting with such pious, pompous, prudish, sanctimonious, semi-hysterical, self-righteous, mealymouthed, whining prigs. The phrase 'our little Paki friend' - or at least the Paki part of it - has brought them out in force this week, displaying modern Britain at its silliest.
Then there was Fleet Street. If one cause unites newspapers up and down the land it is the declared belief that political correctness has reached absurd proportion. Yet here they were, either solemnly or hysterically - according to the paper you bought - denouncing the Prince for his breach of that new and insidious code. Another example of PC fashion was on a recent Radio 3 programme, where one individual suggested it was now wrong to use the term 'foreigner'. No less alarming is the remorseless decline of the once famous British sense of humour. In the late Sixties, Spike Milligan starred in a TV series playing 'Paki-Paddy', a Pakistan-Irishman. It was a comedy. Today, showing the series might well lead to a prosecution. And, of course, denunciation by politicians. David Cameron was immediate in declaring the dreaded phrase 'completely unacceptable' - pompous twit. Imagine you were involved in an accident or even a terrorist incident. Who would you expect to dash fastest to your aid - the Prince or one of those race relations correspondents? The question answers itself. And do you imagine the Prince would show any sort of discrimination about which fellow soldier he tried to save in a battle? That question also answers itself. There is a deadly serious political aspect to this whole business of allowable words, which George Orwell would have understood. Once you lay siege to a language, you lay siege to people's minds. You seek to control not just what people say, but what they think. The distortion of history that this can lead to was exemplified for me when I talked to a young man about the World War II invasion of Russia. By the Nazis, he parroted. By the Germans, in millions, I stressed. He vaguely thought only Nazis had been on this mission. Those who press the PC cause are always a public menace. My message to them is that if you are so hyper-sensitive about the implications of every word, you should go and live in a monastery. Or better still, emigrate. There is a better way of putting it. But this is, after all, a family newspaper. Posted by: Fred 2009-01-17 |
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