Following the creation of deepfake sexualised images of children and women, remaining on Elon Musk’s X platform guarantees reputational damage, argues our Writer at Large Neil Mackay

Satire can destroy its target in ways that neither the hard facts of journalism nor the creativity of the novelist, dramatist or artist can ever match.

Cast your mind back to the 1990s when satirists from Spitting Image were portraying John Major as a man in grey underpants obsessed with peas, or placing a tiny, pitiful David Steel in the pocket of a super-suave David Owen. The lampooning was so bad Steel’s wife said it killed his career. It certainly fixed Major in the public mind as a weak leader undeserving of office.

Once a satirist nails you, it sticks; people don’t forget.

The latest episode of The News Quiz on Radio 4 – probably the best vehicle for satire in Britain today – nailed Elon Musk’s degenerate X, once known as Twitter before the billionaire dragged it into a gutter of pornography, hate and violence.

The social media platform was referred to as a “Nazi dildo dungeon” and a site for “wrong ‘uns”. Now, I’m not hugely swayed by what others think of me, but like most folk I don’t want to be referred to as a wrong ‘un, given it comes with the implication that the police should have a shufti through your hard drive.

And while I may have lived a life of variegated debauchery in my younger days, I certainly have no desire to be thought of as a patron of Nazi dildo dungeons.

Read more by Neil Mackay

You get where I’m going with this, right? When it comes to brands, mud sticks. Ask Gerald Ratner. X has now reached such a nadir of disgrace that simply using it is a character stain.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, Conservative chair of........

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