ONLY people of a certain age will know who Dorothy Parker is, and those who do are likely to remember her more for her quips and wise-cracks than her politics.

She coined the line “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses”, and she co-wrote the screenplay of A Star is Born.

But Parker was more than just a witty member of the infamous Algonquin Club who wrote for the New Yorker. She was an astute observer of the American scene and a campaigner for human rights – not least a champion of African-Americans.

Her short story An Arrangement in Black and White is one of the most devastating critiques of left-leaning intellectuals – champagne socialists, if you will – who hide their prejudices behind fine words and meaningless gestures.

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When she died in 1967 she left her estate to Martin Luther King and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Unsurprisingly, she ended up on the FBI’s watchlist and was blacklisted from working in Hollywood during the McCarthy era.

If she were alive today she would be being pilloried by the current occupant of the White House and his MAGA mudslingers.

Her asides often........

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