The Dalai Lama can provoke a wide range of responses. For my own part I have always thought him a spiritual placebo whose main utility – aside from aggravating the Chinese Communist party – is as a bore-detector in others. The moment somebody cites the Dalai Lama at any gathering, you know you can start searching for an escape hatch.

Yet I doubt that anyone has ever claimed that the world’s most famous Buddhist is a fascist, xenophobe or (that most common and inexact label of our time) “alt-right”. Perhaps it is time to rethink this assumption? For during a speech this week, the Dalai Lama said something that, if it had come from anyone else’s lips, would have had them labelled a full-on fascist. Whip up those robes, they would claim, and you will find jackboots.

His comments came during a visit to Malmo, Sweden. In 2015, that country added an extra 2 per cent to its population through migration. So the question of how many people Europe should take in and when some limit might be reached is especially pertinent there. For his part the Dalai Lama advised his audience to “Receive them, help them, educate them. But ultimately they should develop their own country.” Worse was that the Nobel prize-winning Buddhist leader continued: “Europe belongs to the Europeans”.

As it happens, on this occasion I find myself broadly in agreement with the Dalai Lama, though wouldn’t have put things quite so bluntly. It is best that Europe does not become the home for everyone in the world who makes it here. Societies that are fundamentally altered without the consent of their peoples will be hard-pushed to remain orderly or harmonious. And it is by no means obvious that the best solution for the developing world is for their most talented and driven people to come to Europe and scratch out a living on the edges of our legal economy.

Of course polls show that most Europeans agree with the Dalai Lama. Yet few people are lucky enough to actually be the Dalai Lama. So the recognition grows that what is tolerated from one mouth will not be tolerated from another. And the question of who is allowed to speak basic truths in our societies ferments away.

Over recent decades, the radical Left has pushed an extraordinarily invidious and destructive idea, from university campuses outwards: that the identity of a speaker matters more than the content of their words. That “who says a thing” matters more than “what is being said”. It is a claim which, among other things, inverts the central moral insight of Martin Luther King – that people should be judged by the content of their character, not their immutable characteristics.

The Dalai Lama has the robe, religion, pigmentation, haircut and history to immunise himself from the worst accusations credit: Ben Stansall/AFP

Today the most important thing has become not the truth of an argument but the characteristics of the speaker. The Dalai Lama has the robe, religion, pigmentation, haircut and history to immunise himself from the worst accusations. But your average European is not so lucky. We are forced to lie, remain silent or be insulted if we wish to speak basic truths. And not just on this matter, but on any number of matters pushed by the moral-flatulence of the radical Left.

If you are a straight white male today then your chance of being listened to on any matter is vanishingly small. If you are gay then a window may be open for a nanosecond longer. If you are a woman you may get a pass on some issues. If you are from an ethnic minority you will be allowed a few more.

But even then you have to toe amazingly specific (and fast-moving) lines in order not to become anathematised by people who only pretend to care. Just ask those Labour women who raised objections to ex-men on all-women shortlists. For the truth is that while identity is the determining issue in the interim, it is merely the battering ram for a whole political project coming in behind once the gates are down.

Ignorant of this fact, even conservatives currently seem willing to rearrange our society not along the colour-blind, gender-blind lines that some of us still wish for, but along the lines of people who are gender and race-obsessed.

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The consequences are all around us. Everywhere across the public and private sector, appointments based on merit are being weighed up – and increasingly losing – against appointments made on identity. Even our Government is far from immune from the temptation. After all, why was Karen Bradley appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? This is a person so ignorant – and so confident in her ignorance – that she was happy to reveal in a recent interview that she knew nothing whatsoever about Northern Ireland before starting her present role. Was she put in her place for her great intellectual curiosity? Because the Prime Minister thought this an especially good moment to put a novice into that role? Or because as each day goes by everything becomes ever-more about the speaker not the speech?

This is why the rise of Jacob Rees-Mogg is pleasant even for those of us often in disagreement with him. In the world that the radical Left has set up, there should be no one so ignored. Not only pale and male, but rich and double-breasted. Yet he also happens to display two attributes which have been vanishing from public life of late: intelligence and courtesy.

The same far-Left who have spent recent years trying to present all non-Dalai Lamas as xenophobes are now trying to unload their whole armoury on Rees-Mogg. They seek to present his views on abortion as misogyny, his adherence to the Catholic faith as membership of an obscure, dangerous cult, and his devotion to fiscal responsibility as a barely disguised desire to kill the poor. Which is why people who presumably think of themselves as good human beings are happy to stand outside the Rees-Mogg house bullying the Rees-Mogg children.

A few years ago the actor and director Rupert Everett presented a television programme on prostitution. During its course, he interviewed a number of practitioners. At one stage he made some point and one former prostitute snapped: “I find that offensive.” In a moment of televisual bliss, Everett replied, “Oh yes, tell me why?” And she told him. And they argued the point.

On almost every issue, great and small, in our society today – from immigration to gender, race to Northern Ireland – everyone is happy to claim offence. And plenty of people are willing to accept the idea that basic truths cannot be defended by most people based on immutable characteristics.

Too few people are willing to say: “Tell me why.” Or even try to argue anything out. But perhaps we should give it a go – once again regarding facts, evidence and serious contestation as matters of import. After all, the world’s biggest bore cannot be the only person permitted to tell the truth.

Douglas Murray is the author of ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ (Bloomsbury Continuum)