SARAH VINE: After Lorraine Kelly was accused of ‘body-shaming’ Gemma Arterton… Why are we all so desperate to take offence?

Lorraine Kelly, presenter of ITV’s mid-morning chat show, has been accused of ‘body-shaming’ Gemma Arterton for describing her as having a ‘normal’ figure during an interview to promote the actress’s new film

Lorraine Kelly, presenter of ITV’s mid-morning chat show, has been accused of ‘body-shaming’ Gemma Arterton for describing her as having a ‘normal’ figure during an interview to promote the actress’s new film.

Thousands ‘took to Twitter’ (as the tiresome cliche goes) to complain about the alleged insult. Very quickly the perceived slight had become a case of Kelly actually calling Arterton fat, and from there the outrage spread.

By lunchtime, poor Lorraine was the subject of a full-blown social media lynching, her questioning condemned as ‘uncomfortable’, ‘insulting’ and ‘weird’.

What utter madness. Let’s be clear: Lorraine did not call Arterton fat. She was merely pointing out that compared to most of the half-starved, carb-free celebrity waifs she usually interviews, Arterton (who’s 5ft 7in and a size 10) was pretty normal-looking.

Lorraine probably thought it was something Arterton (who seems pretty dull) might want to talk about — after all, the actress did once say that pressure to be thin was ‘an issue’ in the industry.

Instead the icy expression on the ex?Bond girl’s face made it clear that she considered the assertion unflattering — leaving poor Lorraine digging herself ever deeper.

The question of whether Arterton is or isn’t ‘normal-sized’ remains unanswered. What’s certain, however, is that overreaction to anything other than the blandest and most carefully scripted behaviour — whether from TV presenters, politicians or anyone else in the public eye — is now, to borrow a word, normal.

Thousands ‘took to Twitter’ (as the tiresome cliche goes) to complain about the alleged insult. Very quickly the perceived slight had become a case of Kelly actually calling Arterton fat, and from there the outrage spread

Has humankind in all its history ever been so damn touchy? The more cossetted and free our lives become, the more we seek out utterly bogus forms of prejudice or discrimination to get our knickers in a twist about.

I don’t imagine, for example, that the mother of a starving child in Aleppo would be too upset if her daughter were described as looking ‘normal’.

It’s the young who seem to have the thinnest skins, as each generation digs ever deeper to find something fresh to be offended by — from mollycoddled students with their ‘safe spaces’ (where no one can say anything remotely challenging) to the white, highly privileged members of the protest group Black Lives Matter — one of whom is called Natalie Geraldine Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, for heaven’s sake.

I’ve experienced this phenomenon at home, too. My daughter, who is dyslexic, is lucky enough to go to a school where they give her extra help with her learning. 

The official name for these classes is SEN (Special Educational Needs). I can’t remember this, so I once referred to it as ‘special needs class’.

My daughter was horrified. Apparently this is an inappropriate term (obviously, I now jokingly say it as much as possible just to annoy her).

The point is, what does it matter what her extra lessons are called? At least she gets them. Which is more than my generation ever got.

When I exhibited similar difficulties at her age, I was simply labelled ‘backward’ and, once, ‘a bit of a retard’. Can you imagine the outrage if someone called a child either of those things today?

Of course there are causes worth fighting for, abuses against the weak and dispossessed that need to be challenged. 

But if this pattern of hysteria in response to very minor slights continues, our culture will be rendered so sterile that nothing of interest will ever be said or written again.

Future Joseph Conrads (racism) Charles Dickenses (anti-semitism) and Martin Amises (sexism) will be run out of town before they’ve even had a chance to put prejudice to paper.

As for Shakespeare (all of the above), he’d banished from public life for ever.

If we’re not careful, all traces of humour will soon have been bred out of the human race, followed swiftly by the expunging of intelligence, common sense and any appetite for debate.

We’ll all be reduced to nothing more than nodding dogs, smiling like beatific robots as the world descends into intellectual stagnation.

I enjoyed my colleague Amanda Platell’s plaintive piece in yesterday’s Mail, in which she lamented the fact that the Prime Minister, Theresa May, has stolen her style. 

She should count herself lucky: mine seems to have been nicked by Jo Brand.

A very distasteful stunt 

I know I’m meant to feel incredibly moved by the field of lifejackets in Parliament Square, but I just find it patronising and distasteful.

There can hardly be a single person in the UK who isn’t already painfully aware of the plight of Syrian refugees — so exactly who is this demonstration meant to benefit?

Those poor souls who have lost their lives fleeing war or its virtue-signalling celebrity champions keen to showcase their bleeding hearts?

As for David Miliband, whose International Rescue Commission was behind the stunt, now he’s living full-time in New York shouldn’t he consider using his £2 million, four-bedroom home in Primrose Hill to accommodate Syrian refugees — instead of renting it out for an estimated £6,000 a month?

I know I’m meant to feel incredibly moved by the field of lifejackets in Parliament Square, but I just find it patronising and distasteful

Kate Moss, it is widely and feverishly reported, is to start her own talent agency. And what talent, exactly, would that be?

 Oldies need apps too!

The world is full of clever apps for young people. Dating apps, fitness apps, fashion apps, homework apps. But how about an app for middle-aged women?

One that alerts you when you start to tell a story to someone you’ve already told it to twice already, for example. Or one that makes a disapproving sound when you reach for that third glass of wine.

Or gently reminds you that, on balance, you probably don’t need another pair of black trousers identical to the 20 you already have in your wardrobe.

Shamed Topshop boss Philip Green’s no-show at London Fashion Week at least means the poor models won’t have to submit to his notorious sweaty embraces.

And the organisers must be delighted, too: the High Street heavyweight’s absence means they can fit at least three more wafer-thin fashionistas in the front row.

Has society become so inured to the crass vulgarity of porn star chic?

As if parading her naked buttocks at every available occasion weren’t enough, Kim Kardashian has decided to stop wearing a bra, with eye-popping results.

Yet the fashion pack (led by Vogue magazine’s Anna Wintour) continues to hail her as a style goddess.

Does no one care that this trumped-up little trollop holds sway over millions of devoted young followers, many of whom try to emulate her look?

Or has society become so inured to the crass vulgarity of porn star chic?

Of course Paul Gascoigne is an ocean-going prat for telling a black bodyguard hired to protect him at a stage show: ‘Can you smile so I can see you?’

But did such a pathetically foolish (and unfunny) joke really warrant all the public expense of dragging this sad, sozzled former footballer to court where a judge fined him £1,000 for racially aggravated harassment?

A woman claiming tax credits has had her benefits cut after the firm that administers the system, Concentrix, accused her of cohabiting with one Joseph Rowntree.

Anyone with half a brain would know that Joseph Rowntree is not some free-loading ne’er-do-well, but the famous Quaker philanthropist and founder of the Rowntree Trust, in one of whose buildings the woman resides.

He’s also been dead since 1925, making any form of romantic arrangement highly unlikely.

But what else do you expect when you employ a company with its headquarters in California to administer UK Government policy?

Corbyn: Tough on biscuits

I see Jeremy Corbyn’s finally made a policy pronouncement. 

Asked by Mumsnet to name his favourite biscuit, he replied: ‘I’m totally anti-sugar on health grounds, so eat very few biscuits. 

But if forced to accept one, it’s always a pleasure to have a shortbread.’ 

Tough on biscuits, tough on the causes of biscuits.

My plan to kill off evil puppy farms

A woman from Essex, 57-year-old Teresa Wade, has gone on trial at Basildon crown court accused of puppy farming.

She allegedly raised dogs on an industrial scale, keeping them in squalid conditions before selling them for up to £750 as home-bred on the website Pets4Homes.

One RSPCA picture of the farm shows a mournful white bitch of indeterminate breed nursing her pups with nothing but newspaper for bedding. She bears a striking resemblance to my dog, Snowy, whom I adopted as a rescue animal a few years ago and who has all the symptoms of having been born in a puppy farm.

He suffers from chronic separation anxiety and can’t tolerate enclosed spaces.

It’s because of my experience with Snowy that I am increasingly convinced of the need for a new form of universal dog licensing. The twist is that, rather like a car licence, it would be attached to the owner rather than the animal, and require proof of a degree of basic training.

This would hopefully ensure that acquiring a dog becomes a considered purchase rather than an impulse buy.

This in turn would diminish the market for young dogs — and go a long way to putting evil puppy farmers out of business.

Brangelina are divorcing… and hasn’t William Hague been awfully quiet of late?

I have only two things to say about the demise of Brangelina: 

1) I wonder if Jennifer Aniston is regretting getting married to that slightly deadbeat fellow of hers. 

2) Hasn’t William Hague been awfully quiet of late?