Conservatism is a behaviour, a set of opinions, not a fixed identity. Biology is not destiny, and it is certainly not ethics. Nobody tumbles out of the womb with decent politics. No, not even in Sweden. Nobody is born believing that people who die young of preventable diseases because they are unable to afford private healthcare have only themselves to blame for not working harder. That’s a learned, developed standpoint, and one that says a great deal about who a person is, and the choices they’ve made about the world they want to live in.

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I discriminate against people who are rightwing and conservative. I’m entirely happy to say so. I don’t view it as hypocrisy to judge people by their personal qualities, rather than their background and appearance. If people are bigots and bullies, I will judge them for that. And for those who think it’s hypocrisy to refuse to tolerate intolerance, perhaps they should read the philosopher Karl Popper, who got there decades before me when he wrote of the paradox of tolerance: “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

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It used to be conservatives who were more concerned with “character”. It is odd that the idea of decency and personal responsibility has now become the domain of progressives. But I believe in fairness, and if the right are going to co-opt the language of tolerance for their own ends, it’s only fair that we should get to pinch something of theirs in good faith. Character matters. How you treat other people matters. Actions have consequences, and sometimes those consequences include other people telling you you’re being a dick. And, yes, that’s hard.