ANALYSIS: How dare these BBC liberals patronise us

The sacking of Carol Thatcher is a gargantuan over-reaction by the BBC. It is the worst sort of gesture politics, reflecting not the gravity of the offence but the hysterical self-righteousness of a bunch of white, guilt-tripping BBC executives.



Far from helping the cause of equality, which the BBC loudly declares to be its aim, this move could worsen race relations by treating black people as nothing more than a group of helpless victims who need the constant protection of hyper-sensitive, politically correct censors.



As a black writer and broadcaster, I find the BBC’s stance patronising and divisive.

Carol Thatcher with Jo Brand on The One Show on BBC1 on Thursday night

I don’t want some well-heeled, ivory tower managers presuming that they have the right to speak on my behalf, quivering with synthetic outrage as they try to articulate my supposed sense of grievance about a comment over some drinks at TV Centre.



Don’t get me wrong. What Carol Thatcher is reported to have said was undoubtedly out of order. For anyone to use the term ‘golliwog’ nowadays is unacceptable and it is even worse coming from the mouth of a well-known BBC presenter.



I have no idea if she is a closet racist but her alleged language was, at the very least,

foolish, naive and entirely inappropriate for multi-racial Britain in the 21st century.

The fact that some of her supporters, particularly in upper class and Conservative circles, have tried to defend her by claiming that ‘golliwog’ is really a term of affection only shows how out of touch they really are.



These are people who appear to have absolutely no connection with the lives of ordinary black Britons. An occasional hurried word with a traffic warden or cleaner

does not count as a relationship.

Jay Hunt said Carol Thatcher had to go because she 'caused real offence'

But the BBC’s liberal elitists are as bad as the outdated reactionaries they affect to despise. They are so eager to parade their credentials as the champions of oppressed ethnic minorities that they have lost all sense of proportion.



There is nothing genuine about their display of indignation. The sacking of Carol Thatcher has been all about ideological point-scoring. The BBC’s top bureaucrats, led by zealous controller of BBC1 Jay Hunt, deliberately manufactured a crisis so they could pose as heroic warriors against racial prejudice.

There was never any need for this public spat. The BBC could have merely reprimanded Carol Thatcher and given her a warning to be more restrained.



But no, that would never have been enough for the high priests of our modern Inquisition. Carol Thatcher had to be publicly humiliated and punished for her grievous sinning against their creed.



What is so sickening about this affair is the epic hypocrisy of the BBC.

Jay Hunt said Carol Thatcher had to go because she ‘had caused real offence’. Why is that logic not applied to Jonathan Ross, who seems to have dedicated much of his recent broadcasting career to the art of causing real offence to millions of licence-fee payers with his continual stream of smut?



We have also been told that the comedienne Jo Brand, who was present when Carol Thatcher made her comment, was ‘deeply shocked’, as if she were some cloistered

Victorian maiden aunt rather than one of the most foul-mouthed, irreverent performers on the comedy circuit.



Again we see the racial double standards that I find so divisive. Somehow, a flippant anachronism is treated as the epitome of evil and has the normally robust Jo Brand reaching for the smelling salts, while anything else, from filth to pornographic abuse, is regarded as perfectly acceptable.



Deeply offensive comments by Ross earn him an annual salary of £6million from the BBC, largely because his critics are seen as stuffy middle-class traditionalists who don’t understand the nature of ‘edgy’ comedy.



Yet a different set of criteria apply to Carol Thatcher, as if the supposed offence felt by black people deserves to be treated more seriously than that felt by Middle England.

Jonathan Ross was not sacked for his filthy comments, merely suspended

The hypocrisy is all the more glaring because Ross’s notoriously filthy diatribes were broadcast to the public, whereas Carol Thatcher’s comment was made in private.



We are really descending into the land of the Orwellian ‘thought police’ if every word we utter has to be subjected to the approval of the white liberal elite, the self-appointed guardians of public morality.



For all the BBC’s posturing, this kind of heavy censorship will do nothing for race relations. The destruction of free speech will only create a climate of fear in which suspicion and distrust flourish.



It is telling that every so-called progressive revolution, like the French overthrow of the aristocracy in the 1790s, has always led to brutal oppression because of the elite’s determination to impose a type of rigidly orthodox thinking on the citizenry.

In its own insidious way, the advance of political correctness is doing the same in today’s Britain. In place of linguistic sanitation, I would far rather live in a society where openness and debate are allowed.



The instinct for suppression is never healthy in a democracy and does nothing to help the cause of equality. Indeed, the squeals of faux concern are an insult to black people, as if we are so enfeebled, so infantilised that we can be broken by one ill-judged remark.



Blacks have had to put up with genuine racial injustice for centuries, but no one was ever lynched by words alone.



It is actions that cause real suffering, not linguistic misdemeanours, no matter how unpalatable they might seem.



In some respects the BBC, so full of noisy solicitude for the feelings of ethnic groups, is acting like a plantation owner, guarding the blacks with an aggressive, proprietorial air.

We deserve better than to have this infantilism forced upon us. We have endured far worse than anything Carol Thatcher said, and we know bullying by our self-appointed allies is never the road to freedom.

