At most weddings, there’s a certain wry amusement to be had from watching the father of the bride on the dance floor getting down with the kids, determined to show that he hasn’t lost his moves. But when a flailing limb catches a fellow dancer unawares it stops being funny.

So it is with politicians and identity politics. For four decades western leaders were so determined to prove their anti-racist credentials that they ignored the signs of growing public unease about our multi-ethnic societies. The outcome: Trump, Brexit and the steady advance of truly racist and anti-immigrant movements.

The disaster of the public consultation process on gender recognition has revealed a government so terrified of being labelled transphobic that it is ready to destroy half