If you want to curse on television nowadays you pretty much have full rein so long as you do it after the ‘watershed’ of 9pm. Drop the ‘F’ word and you will usually get a good laugh from the audience – we all say it so why not…right?

Here’s another scenario: a woman, Fiona Pilkington and her disabled daughter Francecca, live in a street terrorised by local yobs. Fiona and her daughter are terrorised by these yobs for ten years – Francecca is an adult but has the mental age of four. Francecca is called every vile, disgusting name under the sun, she is called frankenstein – she is mocked in the street by these cretins, their home is vandalised, they live in terror and under siege because nobody can do anything to stop the abuse. The police are useless, the social services are heedless, the council refuse to listen. Unable to cope any more Fiona kills herself and her daughter just to find some peace. Fiona and her daughter were white, anglo-saxon British citizens.

Now try this scenario: a number of Roma gypsies in Belfast have bottles thrown at their houses and get called vile names over a period of several days; the police move in, the media descend in their numbers to film the scenes and the gypsies get relocated so they do not suffer any more racist behaviour.

And this: Strictly Come Dancing star Anton Du Beke refers to his dancing partner in joking terms as ‘paki’ and the result becomes a media storm. The public are out for his blood, they want this wonderful and stylish dancer sacked and so cue the bleeding hearts courtesy of a bunch of moral morons called Hope Not Hate. These non-entities decided they were especially offended – more so than Anton’s dancing partner – and rejected the public apology that Anton Du Beke had to issue. As if it has anything to do with them!

Correct me if I am wrong but I sense a really repugnant contradiction of attitudes here; that poor woman and her daughter mentioned above endured years of disgusting abuse at the hands of well known yobs – the names they were called were far worse than ‘paki’ and yet nothing was ever done for them. But at the tiniest hint of racism out come all the bleeding hearts; if Fiona Pilkington and her daughter had been muslim, Indian, even Roma’s there is no doubt that their abusers and tormenters would have felt the full force of the law as soon as it all started. Meanwhile Anton Du Beke says one word in jest and his career stands to be ruined.

I would like to know what those sanctimonious time wasters from Hope Not Hate would have done for Fiona Pilkington and her daughter…why is it okay to call a young woman ‘frankenstein’ but not ‘paki’ and were these bleeding hearts when it was happening?