I like Dannii Minogue. She has good cheekbones. Of course, some cynics might suggest they are the handiwork of a skilled surgeon but, were I to believe such tittle tattle, it would only make me admire her more.

If God gave her such cheekbones she is just plain lucky. If she selected them from an online gallery, then commissioned their construction and funded it with her own money, I applaud both her dedication and her artistic eye. Their appearance can only have been further humanised, last weekend, by the trickle of tears that surely graced them.

You’ve probably heard that on last Saturday’s The X Factor Dannii said to the contestant Danyl Johnson that, if what she had read in the papers was true, there was no need for him to change the gender references in the song he had just performed. A terrible hush gripped the audience, Simon Cowell growled with disapproval and, within a few hours, 82 per cent of the 3,000 people who voted in an online poll said that Ms Minogue should be sacked for outing Mr Johnson as bisexual.

Twenty-four hours later one red-top newspaper suggested “Ten reasons why Dannii Minogue should be sacked”. Interestingly the same red-top had eight weeks earlier published a feature on Danyl Johnson that said: “He’s a free spirit who dates women AND men” — and I must point out that’s their “can-you-bloody-well-believe-it?” block capitals, not mine.

Now this might all sound like nonsensical reality TV/tabloid frippery but I think it’s more serious than that. In all areas of public life, any misjudgment or word out of place is greeted by calls for instant dismissal. Politics is particularly volatile in this respect. If you’ve a shoelace undone in the House of Commons, someone will be calling for your resignation. Take little Alan Duncan, MP. He got hoofed out of the Shadow Cabinet for moaning about the injustices of post-expense — scandal politics in a secretly recorded private conversation.

Surely, an Englishman’s right to moan about his job, no matter how prestigious that job might be, must never be called into question.

We’ve seen a similar contravention of a basic human right in the case of Manchester United’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex has been condemned for criticising a referee.

What’s the point of being involved in football, at any level, if you can’t slag off referees? I don’t like to see them being terrorised by packs of angry players or being hit on the head by flying pop bottles, but verbal abuse from the terraces, including the dugouts, is surely a much cherished tradition. I’ve been verbally abusing referees since I was at junior school, and I admire Ferguson for sticking two fingers up to the corporate suits at the FA and saying what he actually thinks.

I was particularly impressed that he managed to make an original contribution to the field of referee abuse. I’ve questioned referees’ eyesight, intelligence, impartiality, manhood, sanity, parentage and private habits, but never once thought to cast doubt on their physical fitness. Psychological warfare is still clearly one of the sharpest arrows in Sir Alex’s quiver. Sadly, his resulting written apology lacks all the passion and conviction of the original abuse. While I’m not saying I agree with Ferguson’s views on the referee, Alan Wiley, I would defend his right, and that of any other football obsessive, to go totally mental when his team receives anything short of forelock-tugging sycophancy from the match referee.

No one, to my knowledge is calling for Ferguson’s resignation — they would be too scared — but there is still, it seems, a career on the line. Apparently, referee Wiley was so upset by Ferguson’s comments that he considered quitting the game.

There’s been a controversial remark — someone has to lose their job. Oh, for goodness sake. Mr Wiley should know that it’s impossible to referee a football match without upsetting someone. He should close his eyes, outstretch his arms and let the abuse pour down on him like a warm shower. With Cristiano Ronaldo gone, Sir Alex is merely re-establishing himself as the club’s most dislikeable representative.

Surely it should be possible for someone in the public eye to say something silly — and I’m not talking about Holocaust denial or similarly calculated unpleasantness — without everyone calling for their blood. This is why public figures have virtually stopped saying anything at all. They’re all having media training that reduces language to a sort of cosy verbal muzak, a series of ultrasafe, slightly overrehearsed clichés that could be replaced by a repeated blah-blah-blah with no real loss of meaning. This is the world that people like the FA, David Cameron and those online Dannii-bashers are building.

I’m not actually trying to defend Sir Alex, Dannii or Alan Duncan for these specific controversial utterances. Ferguson undermines my sympathy for his fiery passion by combining it with an ultrasensitive reaction to any criticism of him or his team; Dannii has chosen a job on The X Factor where she regularly swings a critical axe — as ye judge so shall ye be judged — and Alan Duncan is a Conservative MP. My point is, people say stupid things and if you then gag them, or, worst of all, sack them, the loss is often ours. If you get rid of people who make mistakes, they never learn from those mistakes and we never benefit from them learning. I’m getting that last sentence put on a T-shirt in time for the general election.

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