Rod Liddle

I wonder if British universities will follow Cornell’s innovative approach to ensuring students are protected from wretched viruses? The American institution has received plaudits for its rigorous regime. Students who refuse to have the flu vaccine will be barred from the Cornell libraries and other campus buildings — or, at least, they will if they are white. ‘Students of colour’ can decline to receive the vaccine. Why? Cornell explains: ‘Students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person of Color (BIPOC) may have personal concerns about fulfilling the Compact requirements based on historical injustices and current events.

It is an enormous shame that the Millwall fans who booed their players for ‘taking a knee’ in support of Black Lives Matter last week were not better acquainted with one of the British BLM leaders, Sasha Johnson — they might have taken a knee themselves out of admiration. In August Ms Johnson tweeted: ‘The white man will not be our equal but our slave.’ If there is one thing Millwall supporters respect it’s aspiration, and Ms Johnson has that in abundance. I am sure the FA, the English Football League, and indeed the Millwall club board, who condemned the booing, all wish Sasha the best of luck in her exciting project. One voice should not be allowed to demean an entire movement, of course.

How noble of the British Library to have apologised to the family of the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes for having identified him as a beneficiary of slavery. The library’s scrupulous and deranged researchers had unearthed evidence that Hughes may have been a distant relative of a man called Nicholas Ferrar, born in 1592, and that Ferrar had some early involvement in the slave trade. Ferrar died childless so the precise link was not known, but it was enough for Liz Jolly’s maniacs to besmirch the man. Ms Jolly is chief librarian and the woman who said that racism was ‘a creation of white people’ — along with body odour, sin, cholera, poverty, werewolves and mosquitos, presumably. We are an inventive lot, after all.

I recently bought some quinces in our local farmshop as part of my new policy of investing heavily in right-wing fruit, vegetables and legumes. This undertaking, born of principle, has meant a surfeit of cauliflower in our diet, the brassica having been identified by the Democratic party congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a signifier of white colonialism. That the quince is decidedly right of centre is surely beyond dispute. It was first grown in England by Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, a man who would have made short work of Nicola Sturgeon. In the 5th century BC the fruit cropped up in Aristophanes’s play The Acharnians, when the farmer Dicaeopolis remarks to a teenage sex-worker: ‘Oh! my gods! what bosoms! Hard as a quince!

The main problem with the government giving in over free school meals during the holidays — other than that it is immoral and unconservative, neither of which have been bars to Conservative policy-making in the past — is that it is a hostage to fortune. What if, next week, another highly paid professional footballer — Tottenham’s Harry Winks, for example, or Liverpool’s Joe Gomez — decides that the nation’s children should also be given by the taxpayer elevenses and high tea? Such a campaign would generate enormous traction, especially among the affluent. Newspapers would feel unable to resist. Come on, Prime Minister, how can you deny a starving child his right to a scone with some cream and strawberries?

Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part of the ‘Vigorous Leaders’ range from Waddingtons), my wife suggested — for a novelty — that maybe we should take in the new political thriller starring Hugh Laurie, called Roadkill. We have fond memories of Laurie from previous dramas and are both mildly interested in politics, so it seemed an agreeable idea. ‘What side is it on?’ I asked, with a note of warning. ‘BBC One,’ replied the missus, and we looked at each other glumly and I said: ‘Oh Christ. It’ll be a woke BAME-athon.

The news that residents of Liverpool are not allowed to visit any other cities in the UK is a hammer blow not just for the Scousers themselves, but even more so for the rest of us, who will be forced for an indefinite period to abide without their famous cheeky wit. I am not sure how I will cope. Covid has impinged horribly on the lives of all of us, but this may be the most grievous development of all. Luckily we can still treat ourselves to the pleasures of hearing the Metro Mayor for the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, on the radio every five minutes or so demanding cash from the government.

There are two striking things about the new book, 100 Great Black Britons, which was compiled to celebrate the achievements of British people from an African or Caribbean heritage. The first is the sheer number of people included who are ghastly or mediocre or both. The second is the number of truly brilliant black Britons who were left off the list — for reasons which are not, I think, terribly mysterious. Under the ‘both’ category we have, to name but a few, Diane Abbott, David Lammy and the reliably hilarious Dawn Butler. There is also Kehinde Andrews, of course, a lecturer at a former polytechnic who will be appearing on a TV programme in your front room very soon opining about how everything in the universe, from hydrogen to oganesson, is racist.