From JK Rowling to ‘Fawlty Towers’, the thought police are spiralling out of control

It started with no-platforming speakers at colleges and universities, Janet Street-Porter writes. Now, it’s a crime to enjoy anything that might be considered remotely offensive

UKTV has removed an episode of the classic sitcom (BFI)

Does it bring you to despair if a famous author wants to be called – a woman? Or if you turn on the telly and John Cleese is goose-stepping across the foyer of Fawlty Towers? There’s a moral witch hunt afoot, which has seen JK Rowling toppled from saintliness to being demonised in 48 hours, forced to write a lengthy essay justifying her position on the transgender community. Her crime? A feeble joke about the new political correctness which requires us to use terms like “people who menstruate”. She’s a brave woman to stand up to the new army of moralists. Other feminists, like Suzanne Moore and Germaine Greer, have already been attacked for not conforming to the new “normal”.

Now, skin colour is proving as potent a minefield as sexuality and genetics. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has laudable aims – few could disagree that everyone in society deserves to be treated equally. But you won’t achieve that by eliminating the past. It’s important the next generation understands how society evolves, how opinions change and why.

The current furore kicked off after demonstrators tossed a controversial statue of a 19th-century slave trader into the docks in Bristol. Some BLM UK supporters have issued a “topple the racists” map targeting public art they want removed, and all over the UK, councils are considering what to do next. Should the police intervene in order to protect property? Or (if it’s not a national hero, like Winston Churchill) do they stand back and do nothing for fear of causing “offence”?

Personally, I can’t stand public statues to anyone – from the mawkish Animals in War Memorial in Hyde Park right through to those effigies of Morecambe and Wise in Blackpool. The last addition to Parliament Square, a statue of Millicent Fawcett by Gillian Wearing, is a dreary piece of work, commissioned after a long campaign by feminists – and not worthy of the subject or the artist. Let’s round up all the slave trader statues and send them to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. Job done, then can we move on and in future, let’s tell all potential donors to colleges and arts establishments they will never be glorified in a public work of art.

You can’t simply right social injustice by tearing down street signs and replacing them with your heroes of today. It’s a small step and might make campaigners feel they’ve achieved something but does it help all under-represented people get jobs, and an equal chance to sit at the top table?

All lives – including black lives – matter. That statement is as banal as Make Poverty History. It’s a non-controversial declaration of something any civilised person would accept as a laudable goal. What’s changed in recent weeks is this new heightened sensitivity posing as “putting matters right” – complaining about Priti Patel because she’s not willing to adopt your position on race. Vilifying Rowling because you consider her a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Now, the organiser of the author’s favourite fansite is bleating “stop buying Rowling” and issuing a guide to “cancelling” her.

A school in Sussex has decided not to name a building after Rowling, pompously announcing she “may no longer be a suitable role model”. If a single mum who writes books adored by millions and who goes out of her way to support vulnerable women isn’t a role model then I don’t know who is.

The genie is out of the bottle as the thought police gather in number, a generation of self-appointed sanitisers hell-bent on removing anything which might cause offence. It started with no-platforming speakers at colleges and universities whose views they didn’t agree with. Now, it’s a thought crime to enjoy Fawlty Towers or Gavin and Stacey. Those craven Harry Potter stars like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson couldn’t wait to moan about the woman who made their careers (gaining a lot of media exposure in the process), and TV stars are rushing to fall into line and apologise for jokes they made and characters they played ages ago

Leigh Francis has apologised for Bo’ Selecta – what took him so long? Ant and Dec said sorry for blacking up on Saturday Night Takeaway over a decade ago – and Harry Enfield was forced by Nick Robinson on Radio 4 into justifying playing Nelson Mandela in one of his sketches. Funny how Harry wasn’t castigated for playing Stavros and offending the entire Greece nation.

The BBC, eager not to offend a single person, has removed an episode of Fawlty Towers from its UKTV brand because of “racial slurs”. While the language might have been racist by today’s standards, according to John Cleese, the character in question was a caricature – “the major was an old fossil leftover from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them”.

On the madness that is Twitter, campaigners are calling for Gavin and Stacey to be censored because the script included characters described as “Chinese Alan” and “Seth the black fella”. One idiot also said the show was guilty of “fat shaming”.

All my favourites are biting the dust – League of Gentleman and Little Britain – both as dangerous to my mental health as a double dose of smack. Gone With the Wind has fallen to the taste police because it smacks of slavery. Where will this all end? Will One Foot in the Grave be removed because older people don’t like being portrayed as angry idiots? Series like League of Gentlemen and Little Britain are comedy classics which truly reflect their times – and to edit them out of our history is to deny what the British really are like, warts and all.

This atmosphere of extreme sensitivity has led to the sacking of Nigel Farage at LBC (for comparing Black Lives Matter to the Taliban) and a huge furore about Good Morning Britain’s co-host Piers Morgan, over his combative manner and his systematic taking down of government ministers since lockdown began. Apparently Ofcom received over 500 complaints one week in May along, and over 4,000 complaints for the month of April. I’m not a fan of Morgan, but thank God he is allowed to broadcast.

But how long for? In the current climate, will ITV hold their nerve?