It's a PC World, By Edward Stourton

Reviewed,Boyd Tonkin
Friday 22 May 2009 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

From its cheerfully populist title, you might expect this breezy book about language, rights and respect in a culture of claim and blame to flatter the "political correctness gone mad" lobby.

Far from it. True, the broadcaster (dubbed "Posh Ed" by those stigmatising inverted snobs at the BBC) does assume he has an uphill fight in persuading readers that everyone deserves the words that acknowledge their full humanity - rather than shoving them into a pejorative box (Old Etonians included).

Yet, while Stourton stands up for liberty and has fun with PC abuses from revisonist Egyptian history to tales of council bans on Christmas, he never loses sight of the grim history of prejudice that bred today's prissy follies.

"PC-ers have a genuinely appealing song to sing," he argues, as they voice "a liberal dream... that the world can be made a better place".

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in