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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rowena Mason Deputy political editor

Tory party chairman says ‘painful woke psychodrama’ weakening the west

Oliver Dowden
Oliver Dowden said a west ‘confident in its values’ would not be ‘obsessing over pronouns or indeed seeking to decolonise mathematics’. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex/Shutterstock

The Tory chairman has denounced what he claims is a “painful woke psychodrama” sweeping the west and sapping its confidence, arguing that people should not be “obsessing” over pronouns or “trying to decolonise” maths.

Oliver Dowden, a senior Conservative and former culture secretary, made the remarks on “cancel culture” in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing US thinktank.

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