Who are you calling a poof, Wossy?

Yet it seems our worthy arbiters of taste and decency are themselves lost. The latest Ofcom ruling on gals talking badly on Big Brother has concluded that no guidelines were breached when one inmate called a housemate "nigger" and another came out with "poof" twice on that ghastly show.

The foul words, says the confused regulator, are both acceptable and not acceptable; Channel 4 took care to provide "adequate justification" for the broadcast but broadcasters must take care when such invective is aired. It judged "poof" to be potentially affectionate, as evidenced by the resident band on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Four Poofs and a Piano. And Ross gets millions of pounds of our money to fill his programmes with this and other insults. So what to do in this fug?

The conversations we have in the privacy of our homes are nobody's business. But in social spaces we cannot be as free to say whatever we want without regard for the feelings of others. I may see an obese woman tucking into a Big Mac and feel the urge to tell her she is a fat fool. I don't, and shouldn't. And if someone jumps the queue, of course we protest, but we have no right to abuse them.

This isn't a struggle between freedom of speech and political correctness, nor is the battle between equality-obsessed upstarts and traditional Britons. It is about the kind of society we all want to live in. If there are no taboo words, if we shout "yid", "slag" and "nigger" on our streets, we become ever more horribly coarse and bristling. If, on the other hand, we agree there must be rules of verbal engagement, that we have an obligation to be polite and considerate, we become more civilised.

A little reluctantly, on Bonfire Night I went to a comedy evening organised by the civil rights campaign group Liberty at the Hackney Empire. I expected to be mugged (sorry, Hackney) and didn't fancy foul-mouthed comedians, of whom we have too many. What I found was extraordinary civility on the streets, and acts - including those by Rory Bremner and Marcus Brigstocke - which were funny and risqué but never gratuitously offensive. No one was rude to be cool. It was better than a session at a tranquil spa.

Bad words like "nigger" hurt and disable courtesy. Good manners make the capital a joy to live in. The choice is clear.