Best comment on the hysterical reaction to over-sexed politicians - yesterday's Telegraph letters page

No, I'm not belittling the women who have come forward recently to talk about their...

...unpleasant experiences with salacious male politicians. I'm dreadfully prudish about this sort of thing, and, besides,  I'm naturally shy (believe it or not), I've always despised bullies, and I hate anybody invading my personal space: I don't see why women should have to put up with this nonsense. But let's not over-react.

There's a difference between flirting, playful badinage, or simply complimenting a woman on her looks/clothes/hair/personality etc. and groping any part of her body or making lewd suggestions or trying to blackmail her into having sex with you by implying that a refusal will harm her career. The first set of behaviours is the very stuff of social intercourse, and life would be duller and less pleasant without them. They do not in any way resemble or inevitably lead to the second set of behaviours, which are disgusting.

The problem with questions of social propriety these days is that, no sooner do they arise as issues than they're turned into "issues" by the provisional wing of the Progressivist movement: in an eye-blink,  the debate has shifted from "some men are creeps" to "all men are rapists". This happens every damned time: "some white people are racists" becomes "all white people are racists"; "some heterosexuals don't like gays" becomes "all heterosexuals are homophobic"; "some religions are intolerant and violent" becomes "all religions are inherently intolerant and violent".

This process almost invariably follows reports of wrong-doing by leftists or by members of one of their pet victim groups. Some Hollywood Democratic Party cheerleaders are revealed to be sexual predators and a couple of Labour MPs are accused of making sexist remarks (in the flesh or on social media) - and the next, every male politician from whichever party is a slavering sex-fiend, and, besides, the Tory Party (two female leaders so far) is inherently sexist, unlike Labour (no female leaders so far). Corbyn's Labour Party is revealed to be stuffed with virulent anti-Semites - no, they're anti-Zionist pro-Palestinians, unlike all those Tories, who, of course, are genuine racists! Yet another Muslim nutcase kills yet more totally innocent city-dwellers - and the problem is not Islam, but all religions (apart from islam, which is a religion of peace, in case you hadn't heard). Asian paedophile gangs raping white girls in British cities? What about Catholic priests??? And, anyway, paedophilia is rampant in every town and village in Britain, so don't go blaming Asian men! The BBC is revealed to be using license-fee payers' money to pay some of its presenters eye-watering salaries? Instantly, the problem is a gender-pay-gap, because all men are rabid sexists and society is just so unfair to women!

This pathetic, obvious ploy works every time, because the people who should be exposing it as a clumsy trick designed to fudge the issue and deflect the blame from progressivists and their designated victim groups enthusiastically embrace the lie. When a few policeman are revealed to be racists, the police force goes the whole mea culpa nine yards and declares itself to be institutionally racist. When the crime figures for London reveal that young blacks are grotesquely over-represented when it comes to muggings, stabbings and crimes involving guns, our then-Home Secretary, Theresa May, declares an end to stop-and-search based on racial profiling; the anti-Brexit, anti-Tory BBC is paying its presenters far too much of our money ? The government agrees with them that it's all about sexism. Islamic extremists are slaughtering people in this country and Christians abroad? Don't worry, the Church of England is only too eager to assure us that it's "nothing to do with Islam".

Voila - specific, localised, definable problems - paedophile rape gangs composed of Pakistani-origin Muslim men, Islamic extremists, Labour sexism and antiSemitism, indefensibly high BBC salaries, black crime etc - which could all be addressed by specific measures have been transformed into vast, amorphous societal "issues" which can't be solved, but which allow endless virtue-signalling and moral bullying - and, at the same time, allow blame to be deflected from those who truly deserve it.