Fifteen district councillors and about 70 council staff from Wyre Forest, Kidderminster, attended a two-day "equalities and diversity" course this month. There, Richard Savill (Telegraph) tells us, they learned not to say "shipshape and Bristol fashion" because it referred originally to black slaves. In fact it referred to Bristol’s reputation for well-appointed ships.

They were also told not to use "nitty gritty" because it also referred to transported slaves, though the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang records its first example from 1956. It is used to mean "basic essentials."

Public money is being spent like water on this kind of thing. Equalities officers and diversity co-ordinators grace the public jobs pages with generous salaries and benefits. It might well be counter-productive. People who have no wish to give unintended offence will take reasonable care over their terminology, but it is taken to extravagant and silly lengths which invite ridicule. I doubt if any black people at all regard either of the above expressions as insulting.

People who put out this nonsense, including those who object on 'multi-cultural' grounds to school nativity plays at Christmas, or public carol concerts, do no favours to minorities, most of whom are happy to have their children and themselves enjoy such festivals. The idea that we must examine every word and every action lest it could be taken by someone somewhere as offensive is itself offensive. This is just zealotry, and risks arousing resentment to the very groups in whose name it claims to speak but does not.