Heaven help us.

How sensitive as nation we have become. 

It all seems a million miles from when I was growing up in the same country. It's as if a script written by the Brothers Grimm had taken hold of the nation where each move each sentence each thought process is interrogated by a particular section of the society, sifted, examined and judged. They pronounce their verdict and a person is damned and vilified or acclaimed and honoured in a way which would do justice to the Stasi.

This filter through which we see others and others see us, is propagated by the media but whilst we are asked to join in the rules for judging must have come from somewhere else, some other powerful entity must have been at work convincing us that these rules of thought and behaviour are a bedrock for all "civilised people" to live by.

It doesn't matter if common sense contradicts  the rule or if the natural instinct makes one reject the condemnation or praise, because we have now this 'cultural manuscript' which defines us in all things. Any dissent is deemed corrosive to the common good and therefore has to be punished.

My latest reason to pull my hair out (I would be so lucky) is the shrill pronouncements today aimed at one of the contestants for the Prime Ministers job, Andrea Leadsom who in a long interview with a newspaper hack,  said she thought that a woman who had had the experience of raising children was, better placed by the experience than someone who hasn't had children. 

It's a reasonable statement since the job of bringing up your own kids is unique in some ways but common to a very large segment of any society and therefore gives one a shared experience. 

The opposite could also be said, since there is a growing number of woman who do not want to have children and who feel that having children is such a commitment that it gets in the way of the opportunity to devote their time to your own personal journey , demanding so much that the things they want to do, have to be at best postponed, at worst  written off.

The argument is particularly a question that only a woman can answer since a man assumes that most of the things he might like to do with his life is nor effected by having a family and other than affordability.  He can play the role of being a father without much trouble or hindrance to his self styled plans.

The problem arose because the woman inferred in Leadsom's aside to the reporter was Teresa May who sadly 'can not' have children and therefore the remark was unsuitable at best and downright crass at worst.

Our language is littered with things we can not say these days for fear of offending. 

In some ways this is a good thing since we would not want to offend anyone, well at least offend anyone who appears on a long list of specialised non-offendables.  If your not on the list, its 'open season. 

The people who offend the most, the reporters and columnist who daily pronounce on subjects which hurt and dismay whole sections of society are the very ones who are now on their high horse demanding that Leadsom is not PM material. 

It seems crazy that as a society we are now so led by the nose like donkey's.   That this handful of journalists weald so much power and influence to persuade.  It's as if there was a new religion born and these people are the 'high priests', holding the book of do's and don't's on what we can and can't think, an ongoing work in progress as we are all corralled into an ever tighter fit of politically correct uniformity.

Heaven help us.