Conservatives take aim at cancel culture and ‘woke aggression’

The Tory party conference has opened with a battle cry against “woke aggression”, with cabinet ministers decrying “cancel culture” and expected to rail against leftwing bias at the BBC.

Oliver Dowden, the new Conservative party co-chair, set the tone for the conference as he hit out at people who see Britain as “dominated by privilege and oppression that should view its values and history with shame”.

He criticised cancel culture, which he described as “bullying and haranguing of individuals” for their views, and claimed Labour “has got woke running through it like a stick of Brighton rock”.