I do like how barking mad Noel Edmonds is these days. Not content with banging on

[Burney]

Really? I don't have any objection at all to calling them what they are plainly not, if that's what they want.

Just as if someone with an objectively terrible voice told you they have ambitions of being a singer, I'm sure you'd nod, smile and wish them the best of luck (which would be tantamount to lying).

If it were a one-off case of lying to spare someone's feelings or because they're a bit mental, that would be one thing. However, where it becomes (as it has) a lie that's coerced out of one by social (or even legal) pressure as part of a systematic programme of 're-education', I'm afraid I'm going to insist on digging my heels in. As I said earlier, once you make people accept blatant and demonstrable lies as unarguable truths, you're on the path to totalitarianism. To accept that for the sake of a quiet life is an act of moral cowardice.