The descending darkness shrouding our liberty

MARKS AND SPENCER should be boycotted after a Muslim employee at a checkout refused to serve a customer with alcohol because her faith. But let us not blame M&S entirely. They, after all, did not invent political correctness, but only fell afoul of its invidious nature. No, ultimately, it was the over sensitised liberal politicians on the Left of the political spectrum that brought forth such inanity, and made M&S nervous in the first place.

            

            Employers are walking on egg shells; they are falling over themselves to accommodate the politically correct agenda, which, if they fall foul of it, can result in thousands of pounds in compensation. We have the hate crime, which this young lady could have used, had M&S told her to serve or leave.

            

            The other players in the market, like Asda and Sainsbury's, have released statements to the effect that any Muslim employee put in a similar position to that at M&S, would be moved to other duties…but why?  Would they give such an accommodation to vegetarians or to teetotallers who may insist upon refusing to handle tins or bottles of alcohol? What about vegans? To try and accommodate every acquired taste in the multicultural soup is bordering on madness.

            

             Christian workers who refused to conduct a civil partnership between homosexuals were immediately sacked, and judges have ruled that those who do not like their employers rules should be sacked…then why was this person not sacked? No wonder the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey feels the need to write in the Daily Telegraph that Christians are under pressure to keep silent.

            

             Yet when it comes to Muslims, our supermarket chain stores fall over backwards to accommodate them, fearful of the repercussions if they do not.  M&S should have dismissed this employee immediately.

            

              Political correctness is the engine that makes multiculturalism function, and it is beginning to overshadow our freedoms, and removing them from those who fall fowl of it -  their liberty. It is sinister in an Orwellian sense too; it is the modern Newspeak where words have had ism's and phobia's attached: we have sexism, ageism, Islamaphobia and homophobia. Words we once freely used, some of them were indeed offensive; but not as offensive as the hate crime brought in to stop such offensive words from being used.

            

            Liberals sensitive to the feelings of  all ethnic minorities have gone overboard in appeasing those feelings to the point where they ban any kind of reference they feel might, just might, offend them…like Gollywog.

            

            As someone born in the 1950's, Gollywog - more affectionately, and commonly called Golly, had no racist significance, and George Orwell would have concurred. As children we collected the Gollies from Robertson's jam jars, and when we had collected what was needed, hundreds of thousands of children sent off for a Golly badge,  that came in a series with the Golly playing a different musical instrument. At school children wore them proudly on their school uniforms.

            

           Never ever did any child enunciate on the colour of the Gollywog. This did not stop (in the following decades) white liberals from assuming it to be offensive to a particular ethnic minority, and so banned his appearance on Robertson's jam or anywhere else. The poor Golly had been demonised, and as such is seen today, to be as offensive as the Nazi swastika…and don't get me started on the Black and White minstrels.

           

            I have a deformity. I have a curved spine, and when younger, it was not uncommon to be called hunchback in the streets…and, among the more literary bigot, the bell ringer Quasimodo. Today I could get Victor Hugo's classic banned because it encouraged and gave sustenance to the bigots; and I would have the cultural liberalarti up in arms - and quite right to!

           

             I am glad I am the age I am today, for I would not want to have to relive my 63 years from this point in our history.            I fear for this country's democracy and our Nationhood. It is a great pity there is no Jonathan Swift alive to debunk political correctness and the follies of modern politicians and their mediocrity - also, let me not forget, their ludicrous worshipping at the altar of celebrity to make themselves 'popular'.

            

             M&S have, like many other of this nation's great businesses, been drawn into applying this dystopian  concept of political correctness because of the threat of prosecution -  or merely from a fear of upsetting what the liberal's believe will cause offence to any particular ethnic minority. I fear this dark piece of nonsense will get far worse before it gets any better, and many injustices and restrictions on our liberty will have to come about before it ends.