Beware! The stench of political correctness is thick in the air and all around us.

Breathe it in at your peril and choke with rage, unless you have a world-class sense of humour. What am I getting so exercised about?

I have to start somewhere, so what about the BBC's new chief, Greg Dyke? A successful commercial television man, he has no notion of the concept of public service broadcasting and no understanding of the ethos of the BBC.

He has now started down the dangerous road of trying to appease the race relations industry. Instead of reassuring us he really cares about the BBC's ability to produce the finest television and radio in the world with staff of the highest quality, he has been lured into the trap of setting ethnic targets.

He wants more blacks and Asians in senior management. Instead of putting into place absolute guarantees of equal opportunity within the corporation, he has stipulated that by 2003, the present eight per cent of staff from minority backgrounds must increase to ten per cent.

He announced these politically-correct aims at the Commission for Racial Equality's media awards. They may have won him applause at the ceremony, but they make no real sense.

Talent and the ability to make quality programmes have absolutely nothing to do with ethnic quotas. But here's the laugh. The BBC in Wales has just been reported to the Commission for Racial Equality for allegedly sacking three award-winning broadcasters. Why? Because they sounded "too English" for Welsh radio.

Tory leader William Hague does not suffer from Greg Dyke's timidity about political correctness. He has dared to suggest we are being flooded with refugees and many asylum seekers are bogus. Oh, the shock and shame of it all!

He has been accused of being racist and alarmist. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees deems his style unacceptable. The Commission for Racial Equality has expressed its concern.

Now the Lib Dems' Simon Hughes has actually reported both the Tories and Labour to the CRE for using language that might stir up racial hatred.

The Tory's redoubtable Ann Widdecombe has actually caught Tony Blair using the dreaded 'bogus' word five times in recent speeches. Dreadful, Tony, dreadful! More seriously, what about the crisis in Zimbabwe? It is a frightening situation filled with potential for racial disaster.

Diplomatic niceties apart, the political correctness of white western governments dealing with an African nation is crippling attempts to negotiate effectively with President Mugabe.

No peace-keeping force, no trade sanctions, no arms sanctions, no freezing of Mugabe's overseas assets, no interference of any kind. Ethical foreign policy? It is far too inconvenient. Imagine how different Western responses would be if whites were attacking blacks and taking over their farms with the connivance of a white president.

It may be naive to say this in our cynical world, but truth and reason have become rare commodities. The time to start putting more value on them is long overdue.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.