Opinions can be ignored, mocked,
that’s fair enough –
satirists like Jonathan Swift attacked English hypocrisy–
by suggesting in A Modest Proposal
that the Irish poor eat their own babies.
Some people were offended. 
So what? It worked.

No-one has the right not to be offended
I am offended everyday
by the complacent  Daily Mail-ism,
small minded holier-than-thou-ism,
prevalent in the England of 2022

The well-heeled old
have all the empathy of granite
and so easily condemn
those poorer or less well-educated
than them.

I love the novels of Dickens
for the way in which he exposes hypocrisy
llke a Thoracic Surgeon  exposes the aorta.
Dickens' touch and tone
take my breath away,
he can hold a note so long.
It ends up as a song.