Mark Andrews: Heckling the King, and why the Equality Act is about as British as a branch of Aldi

Like most journalists, I take the view that a healthy dash of insolence is better than forelock-tugging servitude. News is what the establishment doesn't want you to know, everything else is propaganda.

But while I'm all for a moderate degree of disrespect for authority, I do have a problem with the futility of it all. For as long as I can remember, reporters have stood outside No. 10 bawling 'are you incompetent minister?', or 'are you going to resign?'. And how many times have their beleaguered quarry stopped in their tracks, walked up to their tormenter, and replied 'yes, actually, I am?'

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If there is one sure sign that a politician is on the ropes, it is when he starts accusing his opponents of being un-British. Which is exactly what Sir Keir Starmer did this week when he attacked Suella Braverman for her pledge to tear up the Equality Act on her hypothetical first day in government.

“This is decades of protection, it goes to basic values, one of which is should women be treated as equal as men," he told the BBC's Naga Munchetty. "That is core. That is British." He added that it would mark a return to the days of signs outside boarding houses specifying the preferred ethnicity of prospective lodgers.

What utter drivel. For a start, far from providing 'decades of protection', the Equality Act was passed in 2010. It was introduced in response to the European Union's Equal Treatment Directives, which makes it about as British as a branch of Aldi. Or one of those ghastly SUVs that are made in China.

As for taking sex equality back to the Dark Ages, I don't recall ladies living in quiet servitude to their male masters in 2009. 

But I do recall they could also go into the ladies' toilet or changing room without the worry of standing next to a burly builder with five-o'clock shadows and now identifying as 'Margaret'. A problem which only emerged following the absurd legalistic attempts to codify 'protected characteristics' in the 2010 Equality Act.

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I also don't recall seeing many of the infamous 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs' signs in 2009, partly because they had long been illegal, and also because 17 years ago such attitudes were long obsolete.

Personally speaking, I don't think repealing the Equality Act, which has very little to do with equality, goes anywhere near far enough. I'd much rather roll the clock back to 1989 rather than 2009, to a time when we probably had the balance about right between preventing unfair discrimination, while still respecting freedom of speech and humour. 

But at least it's a start.