Public discourse has become the linguistic equivalent of walking on egg-shells. Fear of causing offence is truncating open and free-ranging thought.
I took a call from a listener – Frankie from Huntingdon – on my Talk Radio show yesterday. He objected to something I’d said. I’d been discussing rural crime with the National Farmers Union (NFU) who had reported a surge due to Covid 19 and continuing greed. Quad bikes disappearing for cash; sheep & lambs, for food. Another caller – Mike from the New Forest – had observed: ‘When the fair happens, we know to lock everything up’.
I’d agreed. ‘There are armies of folk,’ I said, ‘travelling round the country, in white vans with flat-back trucks, who will take anything and everything’.
Frankie is a traveller with the fun-fair industry. He lives in a caravan and he and his team tour the country, putting up their rides, their slot-machine arcades and their candy-floss machines for profit and for our general amusement.
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