The British Social Attitudes survey misunderstands social attitudes

‘I’m not sure I even know what woke means,’ tweeted barrister Chris Daw at the weekend, ‘but if it’s just treating all people fairly, and with kindness and dignity, it doesn’t seem so bad.’ This is the perfect example of the faux-naïf, head shaking sadly, cosy boast – well, when you get right down to it, isn’t my political ideology just being nice?

No, Chris. Let me clear this up for you right now. No. You are thinking of the mixture of residual Christianity and social liberalism that, for better or worse depending on taste (and I was quite fond of it generally) dominated Western discourse for much of the previous century. Woke is very much not that.

‘Treating all people fairly and with kindness and dignity’ is about as far as you can get from what’s happened to Kate Clanchy or to Gillian Phillip or to Maya Forstater, to name but three.