‘Do you feel no shame?’ shouted a man who was dressed a bit like Joseph from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat but lacked the athletic body that actors in that role usually displayed.

‘I feel a great deal of shame,’ said George. ‘But perhaps you could narrow down what I’m supposed to feel ashamed about?’

‘Your racism, man!’

‘But I’m not a racist! I’m genuinely not. I have plenty of black friends.’

‘That’s such a racist thing to say!’

‘Well, what would you have me say?’ asked George. ‘That I don’t have any? That I exclude them from my social circle? The fact is, I do. And I see them regularly. If I was a racist, I wouldn’t do that, would I? I’d … I don’t know … I’d poison them when they came for dinner. I’d put arsenic in the bouillabaisse.’

‘Name some!’ asked a woman standing to his left.

‘Well, there’s Trevor McDonald,’ he said, thinking about it. ‘And Moira Stuart. She’s a lovely woman. Lenny Henry. Ian Wright. I’m quite friendly with James Cleverly, the Conservative Party chairman, although he’s no relation. And, interestingly, he doesn’t have a third e in his surname.’

‘They’re all famous black people,’ said Joseph. ‘Don’t you have any not-famous black friends?’

‘Alan Gillingham,’ said George. ‘And his wife, Rose. Deborah Carlyle. Steven MacDaid.’

‘Who are they? No one’s ever heard of them!’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have, would you? You asked for not-famous black people.’

‘At least you’re saying black,’ said a woman with a rich Trinidadian accent. ‘And not coloured. Who say coloured these days? You think God take the white canvas and Him break out the crayons before putting us in our mothers’ bellies?’

‘I admit, it was a poor choice of word,’ said George. ‘But it was in the heat of the moment. You have no idea how warm it can be under the lights in a television studio.’

‘You’re a big fat racist bastard!’ shouted someone from the back of the crowd.

‘Well, really,’ protested George, turning to look in the direction of the voice. ‘I do think that’s a little unfair. I may have put on a few pounds lately, but I’m hardly—’

‘Trans rights are human rights!’ cried a person of indeterminate gender, pushing his, her or their way towards the front of the crowd, and George nodded his head, even as he took a step back in fright.

‘They are,’ he agreed. ‘They most certainly are.’

‘You want to put us all in concentration camps, don’t you? To be ethnically cleansed!’

‘I don’t want anything of the sort!’ said George. ‘When have I ever said such a thing? Although it’s worth pointing out that, if that were to happen, it wouldn’t be considered ethnic cleansing. That term relates specifically to the eradication of racial or religious groups.’