The Daily Mail, Britain's leading newspaper, and a bastion of free speech, debate, and fervent anti-censorship has received a strongly-worded letter from a regular reader complaining of a lack of investment in local infrastructure, particularly potholes, blaming the problem on the much-feared 'council culture'.
The term 'council culture'* first originated in the 16th century in a letter between Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. The king claims that Thomas More is attempting to 'council' him by standing firm against Henry's separation from the Catholic church.
"Methinks the fellow is a most abhorrent snowflake. He Councilleth me, I am sure of it. This Culture of Councilling is preposterous and it demeans our sacred rights to free speech. I want to abide in a land where a beggar may call the king a fat, farting, bloated waste of God's infinite material and only suffer minimal execution and not be councilled, for it is better to be hung, drawn and quartered than to be councilled. I wouldst not wish my worst enemy be councilled, good sir, and I hope thou wilt make sure Andrew Neil gets really stuck in to the issue. Like, really stuck into it, like a good juicy fillet of steak. Really stuck into it".
It is alleged that the term then entered common parlance and was used by Hugh Faringdon, the last abbot to preside over Reading Abbey before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, before he was hung, drawn and quartered in 1539.
"Let God be my witness! This culture of council doth shackle our very souls! I go to my death as a martyr for the right to free speech! Our judges and our ministers are woketh beyond belief! My dying wish is that Laurence Fox fights for us on Twitter by retweeting Roger Scruton quotes, and that Katie Hopkins becometh the star attraction of Parler."
Leaping forward a couple centuries, Samuel Johnson authored a piece in The Rambler deriding what he called the 'spinning frame generation', i.e those who had been born after Richard Arkwright's invention of the spinning frame, for their entitled nature and their lack of appreciation for the hard work and toil previous generations had undergone.
"This entire generation is vacuous beyond belief! Their styles and their customs grate on me in the most unpleasant fashion. They seem to expect the world to be catered towards them and have little to no idea of other people's lives outside of their own liberal, metropolitan, PC, woke, Depop, Yo! Sushi! bubbles. In fact, I hate them, I cannot work with them. I will not work with anyone under the age of 35 because I know they'll belong to the spinning frame generation. Our only hope is that Count Dankula will continue to fight political correctness by teaching pelicans to imitate Josef Mengele or by teaching narwhals to racially abuse Raheem Sterling on Twitter".
Johnson and a handful of other 18th century writers advocated for a 'Council Culture Eradication Council' for the "councilling of councellatory beliefs by an all-powerful, all-seeing council made up of councilled councillors". Such a council was never formed, but commentators have recently raised the possibility of such a council being formed by an independent counsel.
The term has become common parlance once again in the last decade or so, and Dorothy Oates of Tunbridge Wells, Kent's letter to her local council is only the tip of the iceberg.
"I'm sick of it, to be honest with you. I have to take my four children to school every morning and dodge all these blasted potholes. I'm even more careful than usual now because my last car was written off due to the constant damage done to the suspension. I have very kindly asked my local council for help, but they just reply 'we're sorry, but the issue is very difficult to fix', it's total council culture of the most malicious kind. so I decided to council my bin collection and we have, these past seven weeks, been living in rubbish. I hope NNNN takes a photo of my four young children reading discarded 'World According to Clarkson' books, I hope the world sees the horrors we have to put up with."
Oates, 45, is a regular reader of The Daily Mail and has praised the publication for bringing council culture to the attention of ordinary British citizens.
"I think it used to be quite a niche term, but The Mail and The Sun have really brought them into public consciousness, even to the point where my Mum and Dad know what 'woke' means. Isn't it amazing that a word which originated in African-American communities and which used to mean something, is now used by little old us in the home counties? Good ol' Mail, I say, good ol' Mail, they ain't taking any of it, they'll strip any word or concept of meaning and humanity, they'll stamp on those woke hearts and impale them on a wooden stake, burning them alongside the last morsels of human kindness and compassion, they ain't afraid to do that, and that's why we love reading it".
Oates subscribes to a YouTube channel known as 'Scalp the Wokes' (STW) which aims to protect free speech, statues, the monarchy and the right to deny children life-saving vaccines. Their YouTube show 'Gammonunition' features a plethora of different voices from Anglican bishops to Catholic priests. Oates recently called into the host Alex Shaffer, who used to clean tripods in the military, to complain about council culture and 5G controlling our minds. Shaffer then launched into a tirade during which he burst a blood vessel, then suffered what one Mumsnet user called 'a massive fuck-off heart attack'. Oates has been blamed by other STW viewers for Shaffer's heart attack, and, according to sources, is being sued by the channel for overwhelming the host with too many infuriating council culture stories.
No one knows exactly how this council culture debacle is going to end, or whom is going swoop in and save the day. All we know is, council culture has become it's own theatre of war in the so called 'culture wars', and we all have our allegiances and enemies. War is raging. "Daddy, what did you do in the culture war?" Would you want your children to ask you this? I think not.
* For the purposes of this article, we have had to use the phrase 'council culture' instead of 'cancel culture', as the latter has been trademarked by News Corp.
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