It’s not just that the lunatics – sorry, ‘neuro-diverse’ – have taken over the asylum. They’ve taken over the asylum and started walking on their hands, and they’re determined to make us do the same or feel ashamed for staying the right way up. That is what I thought, anyway, when I read that children as young as nine are being cautioned by the police for calling each other names in the playground.
Half a century later, at 65, I have extremely high self-esteem
The correct way to counter name-calling is either to hurl them back or ignore them. As a teenager, I was occasionally called a ‘witch’ by schoolmates because of my big nose. Sometimes I simply stuck my massive beak in the air and flounced past, sometimes I retorted with an observation about my accuser. I’ll never forget ‘Onion Head’ shutting up sharpish after the resemblance between her head and an onion was noted.
Would I have got the police to intervene with my tormentors? Definitely not. I remember how I and my classmates would plead with our parents not to get involved if ever they got wind of us being picked on at school, because such namby-pamby protectiveness would mark us out as ninnies, thus deserving more insults. Half a century later, at 65, I have extremely high self-esteem and the same nose, though I could have afforded to have had it operated on at any time since my 20s. When I was fat some years back, a magazine printed a photograph of Jabba the Hutt and said it was me; I found it amusing. I’m not fat anymore, but the person who thought that zinger up probably still isn’t more famous or any richer than me. That gives me pleasure. Often the names people call us have more to do with the accusers’ shortcomings than they do with us.
All this was before social media, but the prevalence of name-calling hasn’t changed my mind. I believe that people should be allowed to say anything they like about anyone, except for baseless accusations of criminal acts or threatening criminal acts against them. Our aim should not be ridding the internet of trolls – it can never be accomplished, and the police have far more important things to do – but to make young people utterly immune to name calling. Instead, we seem to place the emphasis on making bullies stop bullying rather than encouraging the bullied to toughen up.
Personally, I find online hatred bracing – like a cold shower. I recently enjoyed a particularly feisty exchange with some Meghan Markle fans. One of them asked me why my son committed suicide and I replied instantly, ‘Because he was mentally ill – like you’. A well-wisher sent me a screenshot of some of the Sugars (as the online Sussex Squad are known) conspiring online to hurt my feelings, agreeing that it was perfectly legit to use everything from my weight to the death of my son to stop me from coming for their idol. I continued to repost choice insults from my large collection of anti-Meghan essays.
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’ is still a good credo to live by. Making children feel like victims is the best way to ensure that they never succeed but become ever more weakened. By taking and dealing out verbal abuse, we get to know what the boundaries are. Children are already in the grip of a mental health epidemic which, in my opinion, stems partly from giving too much credence to the views of their peers. Having the police log ‘non-crime hate incidents’ on their behalf will do nothing to toughen them up.
It’s tempting to dismiss this as trivial, given it involves children and name calling. But this criminalisation of language is already being felt in other arenas, from the people jailed for posting on social media to the journalist Allison Pearson being accused of a hate crime over a Tweet. It starts in the playground – but it ends as a provision in the Employment Rights Bill that seeks to make employers liable for staff being offended by customers or members of the public. Toby Young of the Free Speech Union described the proposed law as a ‘snowflakes’ charter’. ‘Expect every pub in England and Wales to employ “banter cops” who’ll be tasked with eavesdropping on customers’ conversations and barring anyone who tells an “inappropriate” joke.’
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson could barely conceal her rage when trying to defend the intervention of police in schools from questioning by wayward interviewers; Starmer often exhibits the same reaction. It’s a weird way for public servants to behave. Their reaction is not that of an adult talking to another adult who holds different views from them, but of parents remonstrating a rude child who refuses to obey. Starmer’s resemblance to an exasperated supply teacher was often noted before he came to power; now he has the top job, he’s headmaster, and he can jolly well make us pipe down. So, in the interests of freedom – and of fun – let’s call the head all the nasty names we want: Sir Shifty, Captain Hindsight, Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest – and, especially, Two-Tier Keir.
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