Modern audiences must adapt to classic pieces of literature as opposed to the other way round, according to Free Speech Union founder Toby Young.
It comes following the announcement that Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels are set to be reissued with racial references removed.
In an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News, Toby Young dubbed the move “completely bonkers”.
He said: “I think it is censorship, it is completely bonkers.
“Instead of trying to adapt classic works of literature, whether they be by Roald Dahl or Ian Fleming, to make them suitable for the sensibilities of modern readers, surely we should be adapting modern readers so they can appreciate great works of literature in the original?
“It doesn’t make any sense at all. The social justice warriors seem to want it both ways.
“On one hand, Britain’s recent past was a racist hells cape, but on the other, they want to airbrush that past to remove any traces of racism.
“It doesn’t make much sense to make Bond, who is after all, a murderous sociopath, to make him a non-racist, non-sexist sociopath.”
All of Ian Fleming’s 007 stories are set to be reissued in April to mark 70 years since the publication of the first book in the series, Casino Royale.
Toby Young has hit out at the 'censorship' of James Bond novels
Image: PA / GB News
A review by sensitivity readers of the classic texts was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that owns the literary rights to the author’s work.
Changes include the depictions of black people being reworked or removed.
References to other ethnicities including Bond’s racial terms for East Asian people and his views of Oddjob, Goldfinder’s Korean henchman, remain.
Toby Young said the changes to Fleming’s work is symptomatic of the “wokerati” becoming “so confident” which has resulted in them undertaking “antagonising” acts.
He told GB News: “I think one of the things that is helping the ‘anti-woke coalition’ is that the wokerati is overreaching.
Ian Fleming's novels are set to be reissued
Image: PA
“They’re becoming so confident in their kind of supremacy that they’re now overreaching, they’re doing things which is antagonising vast swathes of moderate members of the public.
“So that is a good sign in my point of view.
“What we’re seeing is a 21st century of totalitarianism. Instead of burning books like the Nazis did, they’re sanitising them.
“Im reminded of that famous quote by CS Lewis which is ‘the worst of all tyrannies is a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims’.”
It is not the first time Bond literature has been tweaked, after Fleming gave editor Al Hart his blessing to tone down sex scenes for American readers.
The re-release of James Bond publications were discussed on Jacob Rees-Mogg's State of the Nation
Image: GB News
The author also allowed US publishers to tone down racial references in Live and Let Die.
Ian Fleming Publications told The Telegraph: “We at Ian Flemings Publications reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided our best course of action was to follow Ian’s lead. We have made changes to Live and Let Die that he himself authorised.
“Following Ian’s approach, we looked at the instances of several racial terms across the books and removed a number of individual words or else swapped them for terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the period in which the books were written.
“We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April.”
