When even the Palace is in thrall to cancel culture, we really ARE in trouble

Even those of us who know little and care less about the affairs of royal ‘Ladies of the Bedchamber’ should worry about the fall of Susan Hussey. It confirms that woke cancel culture is now so all-pervasive, it has penetrated the hallowed halls of Buckingham Palace. If Prince William’s godmother can be thrown under a carriage for unwittingly causing offence, what chance do us plebs have?

needless to say, the timing of this row – which saw Lady Hussey repeatedly asking black charity chief ngozi Fulani where she ‘really’ came from – could not have been worse.

The story exploded on Wednesday – hours before netflix released the trailer for Harry & Meghan, its blockbuster documentary expected to paint the two Saints of Montecito as martyrs to one royal cruelty after another.

next week, to make matters even worse, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will collect an award in new York for their ‘heroic’ stance against the ‘structural racism’ of the Royal Family.

no doubt the timing is mere coincidence but conspiracy theorists will be quick to suggest that shadowy forces somehow conspired to whip up just the right controversy at just the right time.

The ruckus is about much more than what an 83-year-old former lady-in-waiting to our late Queen said to a guest at a Buckingham Palace reception.

Indeed, the woke bush telegraph on Twitter was soon asking the question: If the Royal Family – which is supposed to symbolise the nation – is institutionally racist, doesn’t that show that Britain as a whole is, too?

Prince William’s spokesman only fuelled this fire, with a (to my mind) hasty statement insisting it was ‘right’ Lady Hussey had been forced out of her voluntary role after 62 blameless years in order to send a message that ‘racism has no place in our society’.

The implication appeared to be that society – that is, the rest of us – somehow needed reminding that racism was wrong.

If Lady Hussey is bewildered by the speed with which her life in the Palace has come to an end – with a mere five hours from tweet to termination – it would be hardly surprising.

For the alacrity with which the Palace folded is a salutary example of how the woke are winning the culture war.

Lady Hussey resigned (presumably following persuasion) at once, with not a moment allowed for restitution or resolution. Her apology for any ‘hurt caused’ made no difference.

Cancel culture has reached the heart of the establishment. The new order of speech codes and language police, in which you can be instantly erased for using the wrong word, is no longer confined to student unions or the outreaches of social media.

To many eyes, what unfolded last Tuesday looked like more of a diplomatic misunderstanding. Let me briefly recap: Miss Fulani, who heads London domestic violence charity Sistah Space, was dressed in a flamboyant African-style outfit. Lady Hussey repeatedly demanded of her: ‘Where do you really come from, where do your people come from?’

An exasperated Miss Fulani finally retorted: ‘no, lady, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality!’

In her tweets and subsequent media interviews, Miss Fulani said she felt this exchange was ‘traumatic’ and ‘an abuse’ that left her feeling ‘violated’.

That is quite a charge, given that her day job involves dealing with the victims of domestic violence.

Other observers suggested that Lady Hussey’s line of questioning was not so surprising, given how Miss Fulani was dressed at the time. ‘If I met ngozi Fulani,’ tweeted commentator Chris Rose (who happens to be black), ‘I would be intrigued to ask about her ancestry, mainly because she has gone the extra mile to make it noticeable.’

Then again, Mr Rose identifies himself as a Conservative who ‘likes the Union and Brexit’, so – in the eyes of the sort of Lefties who described the former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as only ‘superficially black’ – his views would probably carry little weight.

Miss Fulani herself also told a Tv interviewer she was ‘very proud’ of her African heritage. Yet being asked to discuss this source of pride by Lady Hussey was apparently ‘abuse’.

Lady Hussey’s abrupt questioning might well seem tactless, artless and condescending. But context and intention ought to matter. Her clumsy style does not suggest she is a bigot, but simply an elderly aristocrat.

And you do not need to be the octogenarian wife of a baron to get easily lost in the complex, ever-changing language codes of today. Many of the Left, however, go actively hunting for any evidence of racism – and often find it where none exists. They are obsessed with racial identity, yet presume that anybody else talking about such matters – especially elderly white people – must be motivated by malice.

Such was the background to much of the reverential ‘platforming’ given to Miss Fulani following the incident at the Palace, and especially on the BBC.

In this worldview, Lady Hussey’s actual motives are irrelevant. All that matters is how she made Miss Fulani feel. It is, as Meghan might say, ‘her truth’. If Miss Fulani feels it was racist, it must be: end of argument.

The extraordinary thing is that this subjective view of racism is in part backed by UK law. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service define a constituent part of racist hate crimes as any offence ‘which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice… based on a person’s race or perceived race’.

So, if anybody says someone’s behaviour is racist, that appears to be good enough for His Majesty’s constabulary when it comes to charging suspects. In the circumstances, it’s little wonder that Lady Hussey was found guilty without trial.

even that was not enough for some. Cheerleaders for the Sussexes, such as the political commentator and activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, raised the stakes further by declaring that

‘Reached the heart of the Establishment’ ‘Straight out of the playbook of Chairman Mao’

the row proved Meghan had been ‘vilified, abused and violated for telling the truth’ about racism in Buckingham Palace, adding significantly: ‘You can’t reform this.’ now the woke want to cleanse the Palace as a symbolic start to the disinfection of British society. Miss Fulani rather gave the game away in her Tv interviews, when she said of Lady Hussey: ‘Why don’t we re-educate [her], keep her from public-facing roles?’

The language is frankly chilling: straight out of the playbook of Chairman Mao.

Amid all the confected outrage over this ‘race row’ is the fact that Britain is a far less prejudiced country than it has ever been.

I was born just before Lady Hussey began her role at the Palace. I grew up in suburban Surrey in the 1970s, when overt racism was considered acceptable.

Contrary to what the insatiable racism hunters claim, Britain today is incomparably more tolerant: One of the least racist nations on earth. As the mixed-race writer Clive Davis observes: ‘That we’re agonising over Hussey’s lapse is a bit depressing but it’s also a measure of how much things have changed.’

The privileged life of Lady Hussey means she may not be an obvious candidate for public sympathy. But her callous treatment by the Palace matters because it shows just how far the spinelessness of our political and cultural elites is contributing to the transfer of power to a handful of woke zealots.