Mark Andrews: Ben Elton, Chairman Mao, and a mousey moral dilemma
Ben Elton, the king of right-on alternative comedy from the 1980s, bemoans the 'whiff of Maoism' surrounding comedy today, with 'things you can no longer say', and 'things you should now be saying'.
"Our generation was all about breaking rules," he says. "It seems like the younger generation is all about making rules."
Couldn't agree more. And as a rule of thumb, I would suggest you can probably tell that political correctness has probably got out of hand when Ben Elton says it has.
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And to see what this means in action, take the recent Freedom of Information request that revealed the NHS blows £40 million a year on 'diversity' staff.
That would pay for 1.3 million extra GP appointments, or a further 1,200 nurses. And if they all went tomorrow, would anybody miss them? It might mean staff talked about 'mothers' rather than 'birthing parents', it might even mean that when I go for a blood test, they forget to ask me whether I'm male. On balance, I think I could live with that.
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Great to see dimwitted eco-warriors are not a purely British phenomenon.
Members of a group calling themselves Scientist Rebellion glued themselves to the floor of a Porsche showroom in Wolfsburg.
But they got a bit miffed when the staff went home at night, turning off the lights and heating, leaving them in the cold and dark. Surely they wouldn't want to burn up fossil fuels on fripperies like that?
Spokesman Gianluca Grimalda also complained staff did not give him a bowl to pee in, and they were not offered a choice of food. No butler came in with a toddy of brandy before bedtime either, I imagine.
In the end, Gianluca had to abandon the protest and go to hospital, because the glue had hurt his hand.
That should make the world sit up and take note.
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A moral dilemma for our times. Margaret Manzoni has been ordered to pay £4,045 after failing to deal with an infestation of mice at her home in Essex.
Margaret, 73, is a vegan, and feeds the mice, considering them to be her friends. Which raises the conflict between her right to a conscience, and her neighbour's right not to be over-run by vermin.
What we don't know is what she fed the mice with. Presumably not cheese.
