Q. I sent a WhatsApp message to a Lib Dem friend of 15 years. ‘How are you finding being a Lib Dem? I must say a £50 billion Remain dividend would be rather nice — perhaps something to put on the side of a bus so I can prosecute your leader when it never happens! Clearly, Boris is the only contender for PM.’ This message was intended to be provocatively humorous and I expected a witty and combative reply in return. Instead she has told me she can’t understand why I would ‘swipe’ at her like this. Should I try to explain that I was joking, or accept she is now so woke that she has lost all sense of irony and just leave the relationship to wither?
— S.F., London WC1
A. Perhaps she would have laughed in the past, but now that virtue-signalling has replaced religion she would have seen your tease as a form of heresy which she could not countenance.
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