The William Sitwell row is nothing to do with free speech

When William Sitwell fired off a rude response to a vegan journalist he probably didn’t think it would cost him his job as editor of Waitrose Food magazine. Nor is it likely that he would have anticipated his email kickstarting the latest battle in the ongoing culture war. Yet that is exactly what has happened. At first glance, the story seems clear-cut: it is surely just another clash between the outrage army of censorious, over-sensitive millennials – so-called ‘snowflakes’ – and the free speech warriors. The former seek out offence; the latter decry Sitwell’s departure as another example of ‘political correctness gone mad’. The thought police have struck again, they say, claiming that this shows how expressing the wrong opinions can cost you your job. But it’s actually something rather different – and here’s why.

Swap Sitwell’s joke about ‘killing vegans’ with ‘killing Tory scum’ and you can bet the two sides would be pretty much reversed.