Racism is everywhere

Sometimes I get the overwhelming urge to rush back to hospital and place myself back in traction. At least when I’m safely tied to a hospital bed there’s less chance of me seeing things that will send my blood pressure to dangerously high levels.

Today my blood pressure has been needlessly cranked up thanks to one Sonia Carr of Warminster. This humourless and sour individual has cost the taxpayers of Wiltshire thousands of pounds by reporting a chairman of a local health watchdog for racism.

Mrs Carr was at a meeting of Wiltshire Involvement Network (that’s WIN, in case you hadn’t already got it) when the chairperson of the group commented that rumours of pending changes to the NHS were likely to spread like wildfire. The expression the chairperson actually used was: ‘You ­cannot help the jungle drums.’ The 70-year-old responsible for uttering such a viciously racist comment was one Anna Farquhar, a former bigwig from the Citizen's Advice Bureau and a lifelong member of the St John Ambulance service.

Incidentally, the meeting was held in the notorious ghetto of Potterne Wick, a mere petrol bomb's throw away from the dangerous inner city of Devizes, in the hideously multicultural county of Wiltshire. Mrs Carr immediately challenged Mrs Farquhar at the meeting for the dreadful faux pas. Mrs Farquhar then apologised and carried on with the meeting.

Unfortunately, Mrs Carr, who just happens to be a member of Wiltshire’s Race and Equality Council, wasn’t satisfied and wouldn’t let things go. She decided to report Mrs Farquhar to the local council and a six-month investigation ensued, resulting in a ten-page report on the incident. At an estimated cost of £10,000, the report is an absolute bargain at just a grand per sheet of A4. Tsk... anyone would think we were in an age of austerity or something.

Mrs Farquhar and her fellow committee members were then asked to accept the report’s findings that the language had indeed been racist. It seems that for something to be racist, all that’s needed is for one person to be offended by something someone says: that’s all it takes.

Because Mrs Carr thought ‘jungle drums’ was a racist comment, the law says it must be racist by virtue of the fact that she thinks it is. In effect, Mrs Carr has acted as judge, jury and executioner. She claims she wanted a more fulsome apology from Mrs Farquhar and for her to be subjected to equality and diversity training. No doubt she’d also like her to wear sackcloth and ashes just so she can feel morally superior. According to council sources, Mrs Carr has plenty of ‘form’ for this sort of thing having raised allegations of racism against against the police, the fire brigade and council officers.

I daresay that Mrs Carr’s chums at the Wiltshire Race and Equality Council were very pleased with her as they could end up delivering the race and diversity training. I mean, what else do they do for the staggering £113,463 of public money they receive to spread this sort of poison? By the way, a mere £216 of their funds were donated by private individuals... that's not exactly what I call a ‘grass-roots’ organisation.

Mrs Farquhar quite sensibly refused to accept the legitimacy of this McCarthyist nonsense; as a result, the invertebrates running Wiltshire County Council have now banned all members of Wiltshire Involvement Network from all council premises and meetings – after all, they're practically members of the Klu Klux Klan, aren't they? The group’s funding has also been withdrawn.

How could such a ridiculous situation arise in a country that’s supposed to be a developed nation of intelligent people? How does someone like Mrs Carr manage to persuade an entire county council to partake in her hideously distorted view of the world? It’s political correctness gone mad, I tell you.