Tonight, on BBC Question Time, equality took a similar leap backwards as Joey Barton compared deciding whom to vote for in the recent European elections as 'Like a choice between four ugly girls". BBC QT reported that this remark was made 'to audience boos'. There were some, along with more than a few chuckles which went unreported on the programme's twitter feed.
The crowd's reaction was interesting. Instantaneous amusement, followed by the sudden doubting pause as if the audience sensed the statement had tripped a taboo somewhere and though further analysis proved inconclusive, it was safer to disapprove. There must be something wrong with a simile about four hypothetical ugly girls... Mustn't there?
I'm confused. Are we to suppose that this remark was offensive to 'ugly girls' and that as one rather self righteous audience member went on to threaten, legions of the wronged cosmetically challenged Valkiries would descend on Barton's twitter avatar and unleash the full fury of their negative self image?
Barton, cornered on national TV and clearly in unfamiliar waters, apologised to the mob, and in doing so, came across as profoundly reasonable, unlike those queueing up to castigate him.
Perhaps we are supposed to believe that in this enlightened age, 'ugly girls' no longer exist. We have evolved far beyond selecting our friends and partners upon such shallow measures. Everyone is beautiful all of the time, unless they are men, like Ed Milliband who recently managed the ugliest human consumption of a bacon sandwich without the digital human rights police queueing up to defend him.
When pushed on another question, the BBC was later willing to admit that the country has a few fat people in it, and all agreed that 'something must be done' to curb the rising tide of obesity. Perhaps the obese should go the same way as ugly girls - exiled into an alternate BBC political reality where we don't talk about them for fear that the offence makes them reach for another frozen pizza. (There is pizza in this alternate reality)
And what if I'm ugly and obese? I might start to feel victimised, especially if I was also in favour of a third runway at Heathrow.
This kind of hysteria is exactly what makes most political shows completely unwatchable. You end up with dumbed down drivel from politicians who speak with the same faux outrage and reverence as they perceive to be the public mood.
I don't want to live in a world where I can't deploy a simile for fear of a monstering from the mindless twitterate or the even more mindless UKIP representative who climbed somewhat unsteadily onto the bandwagon, perhaps motivated if not by her ugly opinions, than by her ugly haircut which had clearly taken offence on her behalf.
Please can the people who take it upon themselves to police these things just stop removing the last vestiges of humanity from the airwaves, lest the whole thing resemble a conversation between preprogrammed drones - good looking drones of course as ugly ones don't exist.
