Abandon reason all ye who enter here

Wokery is a popular sport, but a steep entry fee is charged at the arena. All entrants must leave their brains at the door, and these may not be reclaimable on the way out (if anyone ever does leave).

That’s no great hardship for most wokers of the world because they have no brains to begin with, except in the strictly anatomical sense. A few, however, may possess some intelligence, and those overachievers do have something to lose.

Boris Johnson who, I have to remind you and myself, is a Conservative prime minister, is nobody’s fool. But intelligence means little, nor indeed will last long, when not propped up by character. If any proof of this observation is still required, Mr Johnson is happy to provide one.

Speaking at the G7 conference, he urged the world to come out of the Covid pandemic by “building back greener and building back fairer and building back more equal and… in a more gender-neutral and, perhaps a more feminine way.”

I suppose this twaddle means that, having spent much of his adult life practising assorted vices, including some highlighted in the Decalogue, Johnson now feels like signalling virtue.

And he doesn’t care how pathetic that makes him sound. Wokers never do: their communications aren’t semantic but semiotic, bypassing reason altogether.

They don’t take the trouble of trying to understand what they are saying because they know their audience won’t either. As long as the people’s nerve endings are tickled the right way, anything goes.

No one decorticates those semiotic messages to see how they hold up to semantic scrutiny. Doing so is seen as bad manners in woke circles, enough to get one blackballed.

Since I’ve already suffered that fate, I take people’s pronouncements at face value, trying to understand what they actually mean. Allow me to indulge this obsolete habit again by looking at Mr Johnson’s statement from some sort of reasonable vantage point.

“Greener” means a wholehearted commitment to the climate change hoax. Though lacking any scientific justification, it has to be avidly gobbled up by the woking classes on pain of ostracism.

Either Johnson doesn’t know that the climate crusade is merely an extension of the Marxist urge to undermine our civilisation or he knows it, but says such things anyway. You decide which is worse.

“Fairer… more equal” covers a multitude of sins, or rather woke virtues. When such words are uttered by prime ministers, they tend to mean economic levelling through extortionist taxation.

Also implied is kowtowing to Marxist campaigns like BLM, and indeed Mr Johnson has urged England fans to support the obscene Marxist rite of ‘taking the knee’ at the European Championship.

“Gender-neutral” means… well, you tell me. Encouraging more children to decide which of the 72 sexes identified so far better suits their neurosis? Possibly. A call for a legal ban on masculine pronouns? Perhaps. Demand for unisex public lavatories? Maybe. Blanket support for the Marxist subversion of the family? Yes, at least implicitly.

“More feminine” is a clarion call to arms for the share-care-be-aware warriors. Masculine qualities, such as fortitude, courage and combativeness, enable people to resist a war on everything they hold dear, specifically one waged by Marxist subversives.

Castrating men spiritually, morally and ideally surgically is a way of preparing the ground for the implantation of Marxist saplings. Mr Johnson seems to be willing to act as gardener, and he wants us all to give him a helping hand.

In other words, conservatism, as understood and practised by the Tories, is a lighter, still somewhat less virulent, form of Marxism. And if you have any doubts on that score, consider Julie Burchill’s plight.

Though not an especially deep writer, Miss Burchill is a brilliant one. She has an instantly recognisable voice of her own, which is a necessary if not sufficient part of writing talent. Such writers are rare among our columnists, and they ought to be cherished.

Miss Burchill may churn out nonsense at times, but she comes up with funny lines more often, and one of those has landed her in trouble. The Telegraph, historically a Tory mouthpiece, has sacked Miss Burchill from her weekly column for racism.

The evidence for this vice, than which, as we all know, nothing viler exists, came from her comment on the name the Sussexes gave to their new-born daughter, Lilibet. “What an opportunity missed!” rued Miss Burchill. “They could have called her Georgina Floydina.”

Whose febrile brain detected racism in this line? Miss Burchill was clearly mocking not Lilibet’s mixed race but her parents’ unwavering loyalty to woke causes, no matter how cretinous or subversive.

Alas, she failed to grasp that any other than a hagiographic reference to George Floyd in any context is ipso facto racist. “George Floyd was a drug-addled thug”? Racist. “George Floyd is an imperfect role model”? Racist. George Floyd was killed resisting arrest”? Racist. “George Floyd has become an icon for Marxist sedition”? Racist.

And even if it’s not George Floyd who is the object of satire, taking his name in vain must still be seen as sacrilege, while doing so in reference to Harry and Meghan is also lèse–majesté – especially if some lowly staffer at the Palace evinces displeasure.

Boris Johnson is a Conservative prime minister, and The Telegraph is a Conservative newspaper. I feel I must keep reminding you of this, lest you forget. Easily done, that.