Corbyn may be a goner but his ideology is as strong as ever

East Germans had a name for their version of ‘woke’ culture’; it was Zersetzung, or ‘decomposition’ in English. It was a form of psychological warfare deployed against citizens suspected of ‘subversive incitement’. There were several techniques to Zersetzung but probably the most effective was what the Stasi described as the ‘systematic discrediting of public reputation’ by eroding the ‘self-confidence and self-esteem of a person [to] create fear, panic, confusion’.

This is now the strategy of the online mob, who have become ruthlessly adept at degrading those they charge with subversion: Toby Young, professor Nigel Biggar, Germaine Greer, Ian Buruma, Placido Domingo, Sir Tim Hunt and Sir Roger Scruton are just a few who have been targeted.

Describing his experience in The Spectator last year, Young wrote that “my fall in status has been vertiginous…I have been surgically removed from every VIP list”. Young was brought down by some ancient tweets, whereas Domingo has been publicly disgraced by a series of unproven allegations of sexual harassment.