Britain has been overwhelmed by a whole new moral climate, with new rules – and a lot of fear
by Fraser Nelson, Telegraph:
We have been gripped by a righteous hysteria that inverts the notion of innocent until proved guilty.
It’s hard to know whether to condemn or applaud Manchester Art Gallery. It has taken down one of its famous paintings, Hylas and the Nymphs, on the grounds that its pre-Raphaelite nudity raises “tricky issues” of gender, race and representation.
The decision is either idiotic or an ingenious publicity stunt. I suspect the latter and that the painting will soon be back, and crowds with it. The effect of this artistic exercise could be to show how easy is to manipulate the #MeToo hysteria currently sweeping Britain: that it’s possible to surf this tsunami, as well as be swept away by it.
The BBC looks like it’s being swept away. I felt sorry for Lord Hall, its director-general, as he tried to explain why its former China editor, Carrie Gracie, wasn’t paid as much as other foreign editors. He could have pointed out that she hadn’t really moved to China, or that the correspondents with similar job titles are at different stages of their careers. But to quibble would seem like defending sexism, which the BBC cannot afford to do. It had no choice but to plead guilty.
This all fits a pattern. An institution is accused of sexism, or something worse. It is terrified by the claim, especially because it was probably true in the past – so it might have credibility now. It’s possible to plead that the allegation hasn’t really been proven, but it seems like there’s no point. It tends to act guilty, and go along with the accusations of its worst critics. Resistance seems to be useless, and capitulation the only answer.
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