Rab McNeil: I fear PETA's 'censorship' of language could go the way of all revolutionary movements

After hard struggles, they win through and their ideas become widespread, with the common herd that once looked away now turning its bovine crania in the same direction, not out of conviction but social convenience.

Thirdly, the once revolutionary ideas now become a rigid, reactionary orthodoxy enforced by psychologically suspect individuals whose moral compass has no hand. Thus, for example, Bolshevism, feminism, and bicycling, all beliefs with which I had sympathy at stages one and two.

I don’t know when or if veganism will ever get to stage three. Conflated with vegetarianism, it’s probably pushing stage two at the moment.

I’ve great respect for vegans, and it’s clear that they’re well-motivated, ethical people. Whether the practice is good for you I cannot tell. An internet meme battle at the moment sees one side highlighting weedy, sallow-faced individuals as representative of the genre, while its proponents adduce various vegan body-builders and MMA artistes.

Certainly, I’m not convinced by the human carnivores’ implication that eating meat imparts strength, as that sounds like Chinese medicine (tiger penis stew enhances your own appendage or knob), and Chinese medicine – with the very slightly possible exception of acupuncture – is, scientifically speaking, pants.

This week, Peta, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (not, as its detractors suggest, People Eat Tasty Animals), advocated removing “speciesism” from our daily conversations. Certainly, I wouldn’t like to try saying “speciesism” after I’d had a few.

But, no, they were referring to common sayings such as “take the bull by the horns”, “flogging a dead horse”, “killing two birds with one stone”, “bring home the bacon”, and even “all your eggs in one basket”.

These, Peta suggested, should be replaced by, respectively, “take the flower by the thorns”, “feeding a fed horse”, “feeding two birds with one scone”, “bring home the bagels”, and “all your berries in one bowl”.

These suggestions have been widely panned, and, given everything I said above, you might expect me to join in. But I’ve never been a fan of intellectual consistency and must say I’ve some sympathy with this – until it becomes compulsory.

“Flogging a dead horse”, for example, is a ghastly expression, as is “more than one way to skin a cat”. I find cats – Satan’s domestic pet – morally deplorable, but have no place for that image in my conversation.

Question: is Peta censoring language or coming up with creative, even fun alternatives? At this stage, it’s the latter. But I fear it’ll morph into the former, becoming intellectually consistent with the stages theory ad-libbed – sorry, explained – so authoritatively above.

WHEN it comes to political correctness, the unchallenged world capital is Sweden.

I used to be a fan of Sweden’s authoritarian socialism but when, in trying to live up to its own hype about being a “humanitarian superpower”, it tacked on authoritarian liberalism, it seriously lost the plot – and me with it.

In line with its PC conformity (a very Scandinavian trait), Sweden famously has the most self-censoring media in the world since Pravda.

Indeed, further in line with the latter, and in contrast to Scotland’s media, which regularly report how we are the worst country in the UK/Europe/ the world for everything, Swedish media report relentlessly how their country is the best, particularly in humanitarian matters.

It’s the moral equivalent of the old Bolshevik papers boasting about tractor production. Except that, in Sweden, it’s halo production.

However, it seems that even halos run the risk of being politically incorrect now. Some Swedish newspapers have started removing all references to Christmas and substituting “Winter celebration” instead.

Apparently, the reason is that some nutters might find the Christian reference offensive. I have many objections to Christianity, mainly on the grounds of it being utter cack, but this cack-handed censorship stinks to high heaven.

Ordinary Swedes, to be fair, have started fighting back against this terminological bullying, asking if they will now have to refer to Easter as “Spring celebration” as well.

Back here in Bonkers Britannia (well, Lancashire, England anyway), meanwhile, parents are fighting against the “magic” of Christmas being ruined after schoolkids as young as nine were asked to investigate whether Santa Claus was real or not. Oh dear.

I retain the old-fashioned belief that children should be protected from the ghastly real world, giving them a decent run of years before they grow up and realise the full horror of earthly life.

If that means giving them fake news about fat, jolly blokes on reindeer-driven sleighs, then so be it. Funnily enough, the authoritative Daily Star newspaper refers to all the latest PC developments as “flake news”.

In a thundering editorial this week, it reassured children that Santa does indeed exist. I agree. But, then, I never grew up.

HEALTH bossiness now, and a Harvard professor has recommended that the peasantry should restrict its intake of chips to six per meal. I had to read this twice to make sure he didn’t mean six per forkful.

Professor Eric Rimm suggested that eating too many chips could end with them being pried from your “cold, dead hand”.

Online, chipoholics reacted with fury. One described Prof Rimm as “a monster”. Others posted pictures of massive plates of chips, with one captioned “six down, 75 to go”. Another artfully rearranged six chips to form the letters “F” and “U”.

These are healthy indications that we, the common people, are fighting back against all the prescribers, finger-waggers and tutters. I suspect that Prof Rimm is a well-meaning individual (possibly even a stage one, as outlined above).

But in Scotland he would undoubtedly be told: “You may take our Christmas but you will never take our chips!”