This report on the BBC highlights a worrying trend in political correctness.

The estate and publisher of Roald Dahl's books has published politically correct versions of the author's books which remove references to things like characters' appearance and weight. This has, rightly, created a backlash, with the UK's Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, weighing in against the sanitising of the books; good for him.

Where will this end? Will we see cleaned up versions of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets and books by Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Leo Tolstoy? Could the Christian Bible get an injection of woke-ism too? All of these works contain at least something that is nowadays considered offensive by some.

Our literature is part of our history and culture, and tampering with it undermines our understanding of ourselves and our history. Our history is full of prejudice and cruelty, and whitewashing it seriously distorts our understanding of why things happened.

I think it is time to pay much less attention to claims that some statements are offensive. Ricky Gervais had it right when he said "You have the right to offend and be offended. But you don't have the right to never be offended." He also said "I hate it when people say 'that joke was offensive'. No, you gotta say 'You found it offensive'."

Life is full of offense. I am offended every time someone assumes that I am a christian; when someone in Germany, the Netherlands or France assumes that I don't at least understand the local language; and assumes that because I went to the Oktoberfest, I got drunk. We just have to shrug it off; it usually isn't meant cruelly, and even if it is, we can live with it.