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Oh, dear!  The death of Prince Phillip has brought out all the joyless, self-righteous little prigs, eager to impose their sanctimonious morality on the rest of us, lest anybody have any fun that their hypocritical Victorian prudishness might be offended by.  These ghastly self-appointed guardians of public morals remind me so much of that buttoned-up, tweedy, little suburban housewife from the 1960s, Mrs Mary Whitehouse, who took it upon herself to censor any entertainment likely to corrupt public decency – what she called ‘filth’ – such as the portrayal of homosexuality as anything other than the disgusting perversion she thought it was, or indeed any sexuality except 5 minutes’ furtive fumbling between man and wife on a Saturday night with the lights out. 

It was she who succeeded in getting so many theatrical and cinematic productions banned and even brought private prosecutions against Gay News on the grounds of blasphemous libel, the first such case for more than 50 years. Another private prosecution was against the director of the play The Romans in Britain, which had been performed at the National Theatre.  She thought being gay was the result of parents having sex while pregnant. This staunch ally and protege of Thatcher even got Monty Python’s Life of Brian outlawed, and objected to Dr Who, although she was a keen supporter of the Vietnam war and opposed any criticism of nuclear arms.

Oh, how we laughed and mocked her, for her utterly unchristian attitudes in the name of her narrow-minded version of Christianity.  We thought her like had disappeared along with sanctimonious witch hunts – yet here are her inheritors today, no different in essence and completely lacking in any self-awareness or sense of humour.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, although doubtless they would object to dirty foreign lingo being used, suspecting it of unsanitary and offensive smutty double entendres.

Phillip may not have been to everybody’s taste. He was plain-spoken and bluff, with little regard for prissy diplomatic niceties and politenesses, as befits a military man who served with distinction throughout the Second World War and put his life on the line for his adopted country.  He was a rock for his wife, who clearly loved him dearly and relied on him for support through more than 70 years of marriage, and accepted a second-fiddle role that he could never have anticipated and which must have irked such an energetic character.  His positive attributes far outweigh any minor lack of tact, as they vastly outweigh any achievements of those who seek to denigrate him now.  We might very reasonably ask those who speak ill of the dead, ‘Well, what exactly have you done that gives you the right to cast the first stone?’

Doubtless, Phillip’s death will be deeply mourned by the only remaining royal worthy of any respect, the Queen, and his sadly largely worthless family.  The news will also be greeted with consternation by the Kastom people of Yaohnanen on the southern island of Tanna in Vanuatu, who reckon him a god. 

Personally, I never knew him, so I can feel only a distant sympathy, but I respect the man for his service to my country, and I regret his death far more than that (thousands of miles away and nothing to do with anyone here) of a certain violent thug and armed robber of women that those queuing up to denigrate Phillip doubtless got all shouty about, and who, as far as I can see, the world is far better off without. Apparently, a few tactless jokes about women and foreigners are far, far worse than pistol-whipping and robbing an innocent woman of a different race to oneself.  Can’t say as I see it myself.

We thought Mary and her ilk had long since vanished, as dead as the dodo. How could anybody take her seriously? Yet all the little Mrs Whitehouses are out in force once again, with all the smug self-assurance of those who know they are doing god’s will (which happens to conveniently always be the same as their own) to let us know how offended they are. These days the word racist (or fascist, for that matter) appears to have no meaning except ‘someone I don’t like’ and the accusation alone, however groundless, is, like calling someone a witch, enough to condemn. For shame!

Postscript 16th April 2021: It is with some pride and satisfaction that I can report that a few weeks after I posted this the estimable Joan Bakewell (aka ‘the thinking man’s crumpet’ and famous as a public intellectual during the 1960s) wrote a piece for the Daily Telegraph drawing the same comparisons between today’s New Puritans and Mrs Whitehouse. The Life Of Brian also got a mention among several examples that we both used. Perhaps I’m not so dumb after all. See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/todays-new-puritans-will-not-hold-sway-culture-ever/