I find it slightly depressing that the only time we have a debate about something like this (ie something that matters) is when a politician whose star is fading sees it as an opportunity to make a run for the deputy leadership of his party. Sorry Jack, mate, I’ve always thought you were OK, but nobody’s fooled by the timing here. A whole party conference just passed and nobody even noticed you. It was time for you to stir something up to get noticed again. We have become scared to debate anything that might offend people in this country. To illustrate, speaking as a gay man, I’m totally happy for people to tell me they think I deserve to burn in hell. I’m happy for them to express these (shit) opinions as long as they don’t start the process there and then with a petrol bomb. It remains my absolute moral right to do as I wish, no matter how much they voice their disapproval. Equally, Muslim women are thoroughly entitled to wear whatever they wish, but it remains our right to give voice to the self-evident observation that it’s an impediment to fully functioning in our culture and that, frankly, many of them look like an obese version of Darth Vader and thus plain silly. As I understand the law of England now, however, anybody having a pop at me for my sexual preference could be accused of a hatecrime. Equally, I could be accused of inciting racial hatred for the paragraph above. Sure, it might be bad taste and/ or unfunny to others, but it’s nothing to do with hatred. It is wrong to choke off a right so important as freedom of expression to protect a (non-existent) right to not be offended by the views of others. Britain has never had any right to be protected from being offended, nor should it ever have one. If a person can’t do their job properly because of some traditional article of clothing, that’s unfortunate but surely just bad luck. She has to get another job which enables her to exercise her right to dress as she wishes, whilst still being able to perform properly in the job. Some jobs are incompatible with people’s traditions by their nature and denying this is the folly of dogma. All dogmatic politics and religion are, in my view, just institutionalised and ritualised cop outs from reality. There’s something faintly disturbing about how a well reasoned, measured (if politically opportune or cynical) comment by one of yesterday’s men can cause such furore, followed by overwhelming support. What other latent views do we near universally share that could equally be ignited I wonder? I do hope that they’re benign.