In Britain's current state of socio-economic decay - a byproduct of the oft-disastrous 'New Thatcherism' we're facing - not a day goes by without something or other being blamed on 'political correctness'. It's a favourite talking point in conservative circles, and it's responsible for almost everything ever, if you believe the paranoid chatter at the village hall. It's supposedly gagged the police force, tainted the legal system, biased our schools and - my personal favourite - made it a hate crime to be 'British and proud'.
According to the right-wing media machine, political correctness is the hapless invention of a few wet liberal 'luvvies', designed solely to turn Britain in to a thankless, thoughtless Hell-hole of depravity. It is seen as one of the great social evils and the antithesis of common sense, and is also said to belong to a decidedly left-wing mindset. But how much of this holds any weight? Does political correctness even exist?
Of course it doesn't, and anyone with even the slightest shred of decency and intelligence can see through the lie. The only people who rant and rave about this imaginary concept surely belong to the Daily Mail or The Sun.
Take Melanie Phillips, for instance - the insufferably deluded Mail columnist who wrote a book entitled 'Londonistan' after she added 2 and 2 together, got 567 and concluded that the UK was in danger of becoming a Muslim state.
We're also faced with the deplorable Richard Littlejohn, who thinks that if a Muslim woman sues her place of work for discrimination, it's 'political correctness gone mad' and she should be deported immediately - regardless of whether or not she was actually born here, and before she inevitably tries to tarnish our infallible sense of 'Britishness'. 'You couldn't make it up!', he says. Well, he often does.
Then there's the utterly tactless Janet Moir, the woman who offended in excess of 25,000 readers when she chose the week of Stephen Gately's funeral to condemn what she called the gay 'lifestyle choice' as cheap, sordid and disgraceful.
After realizing just how big a hornet's nest she'd kicked, she issued a back-pedal that wasn't really a back-pedal at all. Less an apology, more a middle finger to those 'politically correct' readers who'd 'misinterpreted her intentions'.
Of course, we should be championing her right to be as downright rude and insensitive as she wants, even if it comes at the cost of dragging a barely-cold body and an entire minority group through a thorn bush.
I'm being overly facetious, but the point remains the same. Political correctness is nothing more than delusional right-wing fervor, and is called upon to bemoan the fact that they can no longer smear bigoted hatred in their own excrement on people's doors without a challenge.
For every time a gay man complains of discrimination, or a Muslim woman talks of racism, somebody's always on hand to downplay the whole thing and pass it off as political correctness. The Daily Mail, sadly one of the most popular newspapers in Britain, still puts the words racism, sexism and homophobia in inverted commas - intended, of course, to imply that they don't exist and that anyone who claims to be a victim is stark raving mad.
Whenever a white man is held over racially-aggravated assault, the right-wing jump to his defense. The very term 'racially aggravated' seems poisonous and utterly incomprehensible to the average right-wing voter - the victim probably insulted the white man and started the fight, they 'rationalize'. The white man was, therefore, acting in self-defense.
Moreover, whenever a Mosque is to be built we're told that political correctness is to blame, and that common sense would never have allowed it to happen in a 'predominantly Christian country'. Whenever a woman is belittled and degraded in the workplace, it's because of her attitude and not her sex. This victim-blaming is the flip-side of political correctness, and what many Brits misguidedly prescribe to.
There exists a fine line between speaking your mind and being rude for the hell of it. Indeed, those who believe in political correctness often seek to defend their own right to freedom of speech - a right they've never had taken away but have, for centuries, stolen from others - whilst besmirching the equal rights of their targets.
Daily Mail readers in particular tend to equate political correctness - and, consequently, everyone to the left of Hitler - with George Orwell's famous cultural polemic
1984. I often peruse the online discussion threads attached to each story and spend most of my time repeatedly bashing my face against the keyboard whenever I read the phrase 'It's just like the thought police'.
Apparently, calling for gay marriage is comparable to mind control and indoctrination. To simply accept that gay people are (shock! horror!) just as human as anyone else would be to bow to political correctness, abandon your national pride and become that most hapless of whining left-wingers, a 'luvvie'.
Another thing that the proponents of the 'PC gone mad' brigade seem to believe is that any crime, sexual, violent or otherwise, is much more severe when a non-British citizen commits it. As I briefly mentioned earlier, a white man can assault a black man and get away with a slap on the wrist and probably a few celebratory pints down the village local, whereas a black man who assaults a white man is seen as worthy of execution. And oh, do the thralls call for capital punishment!
Similarly, when a gay couple were refused a room at a Bed & Breakfast on the grounds of their sexuality, the right-wing practically pissed themselves with delight. Here they were faced with two gay men - belonging to that most salacious and amoral of minority groups, the homosekshuls - being put in their rightful place by a harmless, elderly religious couple.
Yet when the gay men won their court battle - proving once and for all that Christianity is emphatically not above the law of the land - the backlash was feral. Homosexuals up and down the land were branded 'manipulative' and 'heartless'.
We'd appeared to have struck that most sensitive of right-wing nerves by demanding to be treated fairly. For that is what the 'PC gone mad' brigade fight against in their unwavering belief that only the white, heterosexual British male is deserving of decent treatment.
In addition, according to the Daily Express, it's a sign of encroaching political correctness that lesbians are now allowed to visit an LGBT-only fertility clinic. It's discrimination against heterosexuals! cry the embattled and hopelessly deluded readers, desperate to make scapegoats of the victims and deny the rudimentary existence of the numerous 'isms' and 'phobias' that are at their most prevalent in this country.
It is a truism that the average Express reader (the white, middle-class, middle-market male) tends to think of himself as the most likely victim of a hate crime. Doubtless he's lost a job because the johnny-foreigner down the road snapped it up for half the pay and twice the work. Either that, or he and the missus were probably late getting a foot-up on the property ladder, after every empty house in the UK was gleefully handed to an unemployed migrant and his fifty illegitimate children. Now this is all rubbish, of course. But these are the kinds of lies that are tirelessly propagated by those who would like us to believe that political correctness is throwing our sceptered isle to the dogs. It isn't, because it doesn't exist.
Is it 'politically correct' to refrain from using racial slurs when in the company of ethnic minorities? Is it 'politically correct' to offer a hand to the woman you've just knocked over? Is it 'politically correct' to recognize the difference between radical and peaceful Islam? No. It's just decent.
The right-wing call it political correctness gone mad, but they are drastically out of touch with the people of this nation (they did, after all, treble University tuition fees and spout nationalistic nonsense on the day of a violent EDL march in Luton). I call it politeness, and the sign of a proper upbringing and a well-rounded education.
If it is indeed deplorable and baseless to apologize after offending someone with a dubious remark that could just as easily have been avoided, then send me to Hell in a handcart! If it's a sign of weakness to accept a gay kiss on the television, then I'm as wet as they come!
For I was raised to treat everyone with respect and dignity, regardless of race, religion or creed. I do come across the odd abhorrent monster from time to time, but I have never been tempted to lash out with a hateful remark aimed at some unchangeable aspect of the person in question, nor have I ever struggled with the basic concept of decency. Is it really so hard to be civil, and, more importantly, human? To recognize and appreciate the many and varied differences in people? Apparently so.
I believe it must take a particularly vile type of person to bully and degrade out of some warped sense of entitlement to say whatever pops in to their head. Fortunately, for those of us living in civilization, these people are not in the 'silent majority' as they claim to be, but occupy a rather noisy minority on the periphery of our collective moral conscience.
They are also easily identifiable - just peruse the Mail's online forums and think yourselves lucky for having more than a single brain cell!