OPINION: Colin Baker - 'We are all walking on eggshells most of the time in order not to offend'

What we accepted, often without any concern, when I was young would appal most young people today. And in retrospect they would be right to be appalled and may very well struggle to accept that programmes like The Black and White Minstrels, Amos ‘n Andy (if you’ve never heard of it – look it up), and It Ain’t ‘alf Hot Mum’ were ever made.

And then there was sexism both on the street and in the home. The workmen whistling at girls in the street may have thought in their laddish way that their behaviour was not threatening, however many times they were told that the recipients of their attention were often embarrassed and hated the experience.

Interestingly it is a key element that it was always done by men in groups and rarely a man on his own. And then there is what people say and this is a more difficult question.

Clearly we have laws about speech or words that incite crime and that includes racial, religious and sexual intolerance. But we must not broaden that to include the causing of offence as a reason to silence people.

I do not want to live in a country that punishes those that question religious beliefs publicly, as is endemic in many parts of the world.

Some comedians use offensive material, presumably with intent to shock old duffers like me. Indeed I may be shocked, but I would never suggest silencing them.

Ricky Gervais, whom I follow on Twitter because of his desire to protect the animals who share our world with us, sometimes uses language that I don’t use to describe trophy hunters standing by the carcass of a magnificent lion they have paid thousands to shoot.

But the true obscenity here is the act these people have perpetrated. Killing for fun. For sport.

The next generation will be as appalled by that as mine was that people were ever imprisoned for being gay or my children’s by the fact that my generation was routinely thrashed with canes at school.