Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke.

Are you a gas engineer who yearns to slip into a cocktail frock? Help is at hand…

By Damian Thompson Politics Last updated: February 24th, 2012
345 Comments Comment on this article

No jokes about old boilers, please

We learnt this week about the transvestite five-year-old boy who’s had a diagnosis of “gender identity dysphoria” slapped on him, forcing his primary school to install unisex lavatories. But have you ever considered the plight of a gas engineer who, after servicing your boiler, is itching to get home so he can slip into a frock? Is his industry sufficiently sensitive to men who dress as women or, indeed, have had the chop? Somebody convene a gasmen’s diversity workshop immediately!
Oh, wait. Somebody has. The Institute of Gas Engineers and Managers held a day-long workshop last month, entitled “Breaking Down the Barriers”. The afternoon session included “Transgender equality at work – your questions answered”, followed by “Changing the culture: Tools to challenge inappropriate remarks”.
We associate jargon-spouting, money-wasting social engineering with the public sector, where it thrives. But the virus long ago made the leap to the supposedly productive parts of our economy, where it gorges on private cash. Thanks to US business management doctrine and European nosey-parker social democracy, Britain’s public and private sectors share the same underlying culture. It’s risk-averse, sanctimonious and gullible, and shovels unimaginable sums of money into the bank accounts of politically correct shysters.
Let’s say you’re a local authority who wants to recruit “cycle advisers” to nag people to join the bicycling cult that’s polluting our cities with its self-righteousness. You go to a private firm that rents out cycling bores. Or, depending on your PC requirements, professional – and expensive – bores in the fields of gender equality, health and safety, race and the environment (ie, climate-change propaganda).
I’m trying to think of an institution in Britain that isn’t terrified of being accused of a thought crime, either in the courts or – even worse – when their chief executive runs into Fiona Millar or Stephen Fry at a drinks party.
Look what happened when Tesco heard the first liberal squeaks over the Government’s work experience scheme. One tweet from Polly Toynbee describing it as slave labour, and the supermarket was falling over itself to throw money at its volunteers. Likewise many other companies. They exhibited all the bravery of the “emergency services” which didn’t try to rescue a man drowning in three feet of water lest they breach safety rules.
No doubt David Cameron is as appalled as everyone else by that. And I’m sure he’s irritated by the high street firms that jumped ship from the workfare experiment rather than incur the disapproval of Newsnight. I’m even prepared to bet that his brow furrowed when he read about the idiocy of council prayers being banned.
But Dave isn’t a culture warrior. He’s an appeaser. He’s done nothing to challenge the smug political, environmental and therapeutic pieties that lard press releases from government departments, retailers, councils, charities and the Churches. (If you want to see “best practice” culture at its most abject, visit any office run by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.)
There are one or two resistance fighters in the Government: Michael Gove, obviously, and Eric Pickles – plus (surprisingly) Steve Hilton, who once suggested that EU directives should be tossed in the bin. But Cameron reminds me of Edward Heath with better vowels, kowtowing to the metropolitan elite in the way that his predecessor did to the trade unions. I wonder if that analogy has occurred to Dave – and, if so, whether he remembers what the unions ended up doing to Ted.

GENE ... a voice in the wilderness

Sunday 26 February 2012