Britain’s institutions are being subjected to a “subtle form of censorship” by political correctness, a new study has suggested.

The report, by independent think-tank Civitas, suggested that PC thinking is “poisoning the wells of debate in modern Britain”, describing it as a “heresy of liberalism”, under which “a reliance on reason has been replaced with a reliance on the emotional appeal of an argument”.

Author Anthony Browne said that political correctness now dominated schools, hospitals, local authorities, the civil service, the media, companies, the police and the army.

In the report, Mr Browne said that whether an argument is true or not was a “secondary consideration” to whether it fits with the PC view of the world.

He argued that political correctness could lead to an incorrect analysis of problems and, consequently, the wrong solutions being attempted.

The report made a series of recommendations, including a call for free speech to be protected in Britain with laws equivalent to that of the first amendment in the US constitution.

(KMcA)