Prime Minister Theresa May was pilloried because she did not express public grief over the Grenfell Tower disaster in a politically correct manner.

It reminds us of the public mood at the time of Princess Diana’s tragic death.  Instead of allowing the Queen to grieve in her own way, the public demanded that she grieve publicly according to its politically correct opinion.

Public figures are now expected to express their grief over tragedy according to an unwritten politically correct script determined by the mood of the time.  This is control freakery.

Let people form their own judgments about how to express their grief.

Melanie Philips made a similar point tonight in BBC Newsnight’s Viewsnight.

Prince Harry has also criticised his being made to walk publicly behind his mother’s coffin as a 12 year old boy, although it is claimed that this was a family decision rather than a bureaucratic one.

Updates:

15 Mar 2021: Peter Hitchens on governmental control freakery during the coronavirus lockdown: “the Government’s ability to order us around in the cause of public health …. a metaphor for benevolent totalitarianism”.

7 Sep 2021: the origin of cancel culture.

19 Mar 2022: Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger tells Neil Oliver: Wikipedia has departed from its original neutrality.

25 Apr 2022: Elon Musk buys Twitter after the board agrees to his bid. Is this the beginning of the fight-back against control-freakery and political correctness?

26 Apr 2022: Nigel Farage: “If anyone can do it, it is this guy.“