Cancel culture helps Boris but hinders Keir.

Our universities are in turmoil. At UCL academics seeking promotion are being told to show commitment to limiting the number of ’dead white able-bodied men’. In Oxford a ’woke score’ could be used in the hiring procedure for lecturers. These titbits (apologies) from the Telegraph have been spun accordingly, of course. But…the trend in allowing our public discourse to be hi-jacked by vocal minorities is not a new one. Just think Farage.

J. K. Rowling, damned by her privileged multi-millionaire acting mates; professors at Sussex and Durham, pilloried by a screaming minority of right-onners..the list will go on. As the pyres of moderation and centralism smoulder at the BBC, at our universities or elsewhere, the silence from the majority is deafening. But in our democracy, the majority is not disenfranchised. That is the problem for Sir Keir Starmer.

He is, in every way more truthful and reliable, honest and solid than Boris Johnson. Unlike our PM he has integrity, solidity. He combs his hair. Apart from needing a charisma transplant, he should be our leader. There’s a problem, however.

The media sound and vision is all shouty and polarised. Our big institutions kowtow to this and that. The shouty ones are labelled lefties. From statue-topplers to vegans, extinction rebels to Harry Potter virtue-signallers, Starmer’s fight for purchase on the slippery ascent to the Premiership is thwarted by association. Would it were not so.

The Epstein-Maxwell-sweatless Andy story, along with the ’boost’ stories of vaccination and an unlocked end to England’s year have buoyed Boris’s oh-so leaky ship. BoJo will be hoping for more cancel culture stories to flood the new year market. Allegra Stratton and cheese and wine parties will fade from view. Sir Keir and his party will be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Step up Starmer. Speak your mind, tell the nation what you believe in and stay close to the centre. At the extremes things tend to fall apart.