Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on more odd English, the rise of white eggs and yet another attack on free speech

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes.

Published
Integrity – Trevor Phillips

Our changing language. A reader received this, on Facebook: “Please inbox me with your reply.” Since when, he asks, was “inbox” a verb?

And more curious English from the Guardian, which pledges this week: “The Guardian remains committed to Europe, doubling down on the ideas and interests that we share.” Doubling down? How very strange for a London newspaper to commit itself to Europe in fluent Americanese.

You may think of the internet as clean, green and terribly modern. In fact, as a BBC documentary explains, it's the equivalent of several thousand dark satanic mills. The internet produces twice as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines. If everyone in Britain sent just one email fewer per day, 16,400 tons of carbon could be saved. But that would require wisdom, restraint and the maturity, just now and then, to let somebody else have the last word. Fat chance. For some emailers, keyboard diarrhoea seems incurable.

Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has been suspended from the Labour Party for that catch-all and legally undefined offence, Islamophobia. It's one of those pseudo-crimes that seems to mean whatever the accuser wants it to mean. It is high time somebody challenged it.

For a start, how can you begin to define Islamophobia when there is no universally-agreed definition of Islam? Islam is not a single unified religion. It is riven in two by the 1,400-year-old divide between Sunni and Shia and sub-divided into many factions, some of whom do not even regard others as true Muslims. In Britain, the vast majority of Muslims live at ease. Their religion, stressing family life, education, hospitality, charity, tolerance and co-operation, is an asset and enriches our national life. But a minority of people who call themselves Muslim are at war, not only with Western values but with their fellow Muslims. It is folly to ignore this. It is plain wrong to close down debate on it, particularly when it means silencing a man of such experience and integrity as Trevor Phillips. The Labour Party may have no place for him but most folk want to hear what he has to say.

Why do we prefer brown eggs? Probably because we were raised in the folk-belief that white eggs are unnatural but brown eggs are rich, nutritious and healthy. Now we learn that they are all identical under the shell but brown eggs are less environmentally friendly and expose chickens to stress, pecking and the practice of beak-trimming. In other words, kindly consumers choose white. And from now on I dare say more of us we will. In fact, we'd have switched years ago, if only we had known.

Incidentally, if you find all the loo rolls have been snapped up by panic buyers, you might consider buying extra eggs. As any lawyer will tell you, eggs may not be legal but they are binding.