Jaguar's suicidal advert was a new low in corporate wokery, but I'm hopeful common sense will prevail - Sir Philip Davies

There may well be some people who say the huge hoo-ha over the Jaguar advert means that the marketing has been successful. These are the people who say all publicity is good publicity. They are wrong. If you don’t believe me, just ask Rachel Reeves.

Does anyone really think that people who might be attracted to buying a Jaguar will be more likely to do so because of a woke, politically correct advert and a dumbing down rebrand? Of course not, but far too many company executives don’t just not understand their customers, they have contempt for them.

Once upon a time a successful business leader would be one who looked after their customers, increased their sales, controlled their costs, and delivered healthy profits. I am afraid those days are long gone.

If you want to get ahead in today’s corporate Britain, you need to have the stamp of approval from Stonewall and get wheeled out at conferences to spout about the importance of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI). No wonder so many companies have lost their way.

The sad fact is that in most PLCs if you are a white male, it doesn’t matter how good you are, you will be overlooked for a senior role as hitting arbitrary diversity targets is more important than recruiting the best person for the job.

The tragic irony is that this nonsense works against true diversity. So, replacing privately educated Rupert from Chelsea with privately educated Jemima from Chelsea is seen as more “progressive” than giving a job to Jim from a sink estate in Newcastle.

Giving a job to a black Old Etonian is seen as a big priority than giving it to someone from a deprived white working-class background. And yet people go along with this absurdity.

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However, the darkest hour is just before dawn, and I am optimistic that this woke nonsense could be about to be usurped by an outbreak of corporate common sense where merit trumps diversity and were looking after customers again becomes more important than sucking up to Stonewall.

We all know that what happens in the US eventually comes over to the UK, and there is no doubt much of the woke agenda was imported from the US.

But the tide is finally changing in the US, and it seems - in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory - corporate America is on the verge of a collective outbreak of common sense.

Former ASDA owner, Wal-Mart (who I used to work for) - the world’s biggest retailer - has announced that it is dismantling its DEI initiatives, and Harley Davidson and John Deere have also made similar announcements.

DEI is now being replaced by MEI (Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence) as the hiring principle of more and more companies in the US, and it is only a matter of time before this catches on in companies in the UK and it cannot come soon enough.

How we ever got to the situation that people decided someone’s sex, skin colour or sexuality was more important than merit when it came to recruitment is something I will never understand.

But let us hope that what is now happening in the US spreads rapidly to the UK. With any luck, Jaguar will be the final casualty of the circular firing squad that has taken over too much of corporate Britain for far too long.