However, many who champion social justice causes argue that the idea of woke’s victory is largely exaggerated or imagined, citing continued cases of discrimination and rising hate crime based on people’s protected characteristics.

It argues that elite condescension towards the working class translates into an illiberal and censorious culture. It assumes that some are too ignorant, and others too vulnerable, for people to be allowed to control their own lives and shape their nation. In a chapter entitled ‘Woke Capitalism’ Williams reveals how the diversity industry with its army of ‘race experts’ benefits corporate elites by removing workers’ agency and solidarity. By the following year, ‘woke’ had become so mainstream that the Oxford English Dictionary listed it as one of its ‘ new words of note ’.

As part of its commitment to addressing imbalances of power, Critical Theory rejects the notion of objective truth and emphasises, instead, the primacy of subjective experience. She has appeared on BBC 1’s Sunday Morning Live and Daily Politics and has reviewed the newspapers for Sky News.

This means conforming to a quite specific set of views that fall under the rough heading of critical race theory. However, many strenuously disagree with the goals of Black Lives Matter , the political movement and campaign group. In the case of children who identify as transgender the approach adopted by the Professional Managerial Class - in this case the educators, psychiatrists, social workers and health professionals – is ‘positive affirmation’.Those interested in seeing genuine social change need to push back against the elitist, censorious, anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts enshrined within the woke outlook. Williams taught at the University of Kent for over 10 years and has extensive experience in think-tanks.