I read recently that the children’s classic “Huckleberry Finn” had been removed from many school libraries on the basis that it is considered racist.  It’s been years since I read it (Tom Sawyer too) so my memory is not sharp on this; but I am prepared to concede that it is racist if I am told so.

And a good thing too – not the racism but the banning.  I see it as one more footstep towards our Woke New World.  For too long have we compromised with political correctness.  “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Little House on the Prairie” are but just two similar examples. And this is not a modern phenomenon.  We need to remove no less a national treasure than Shakespeare from our book shelves for its virulent anti-semitism in “The Merchant of Venice”.

Neither is this evil is confined to racism but we need to be equally vigilant and surgical on certain aspects of sexuality (but only certain aspects) and domestic violence.  “Oedipus Rex” should be burned for its depiction of mother-fucking and father-stabbing.  Nabokov’s “Lolita”, likewise, is a certainty for the pyre.  And, as if further justification were needed for the cancelling of the Nazi Bard, cast your eyes over the gratuitous violence of MacBeth and the polarisation of women stereotypes in, on the one hand the scheming  Goneril and Regan, with, on the other the submissive Cordelia in “King Lear”.

In art the pornography of Gauguin with his fetish for exploiting mulatto models to get their titties out or Benoist’s “The Negress”, or Titian’s “Tarquin and Lucretia”, the target of many an art master’s jizz – all and more are a vile corruption of what art is.

In cinema and music too we need to exercise the same vigilance – see Peter Lorre’s 1931 film “M” about a child killer.  In the same vein is Gary Puckett’s “Young Girl” and The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”.

There has been some progress towards this end in recent years as I mentioned at the start of this piece with the banning of “Huckleberry Finn”, largely because of the overseeing of all things politically incorrect by the selfless and tireless Woke Lobby.  But there is still far to go.  I look forward to the day when the Dewey Decimal Classification is rationalised to cover a few sparse shelves of the library with the one heading “Limp and Anodyne”.