Enough is enough. Cruelty has hounded a flame-haired family of Geordies out of house and home. Twice.

Not content with harmless teasing of the sort that anyone’s humour should be able to bear, gingerist brutes have scrawled nasty graffiti on the Chapmans’ walls, broken windows and subjected the children to ritualised bullying.

If it were any other minority, the outrage would be universal. Yet gingers, alongside the Welsh and hapless trainspotters, can be heartlessly ridiculed and then labelled “ginger whingers” when they dare to rise up and complain.

The conspiracy at work here is deep-seated. Henry VIII, a king of sinewy courage and glorious ginger locks, is tarred by history as little more than an adulterous rogue. Who remembers that William Shakespeare, the greatest writer that Britain has produced, had rosy hues? Why is mild-mannered Postman Pat obliged to hide his carroty bushel under a Royal Mail cap? Elle Macpherson is, no doubt, far more comfortable being described as strawberry blond than a Duracell girl.

OK, so Charles Kennedy and Chris Evans may let the side down a bit. But diversity invests all groups with strength and the Ginger Group should celebrate the boisterous and weak-willed alongside the inspirational and the beautiful.

Australians have taken to calling redheads “Bluey”, which suggests that the men of that country are either colour-blind, perverse or both – though Bluey Kennedy has a ring to it.

The time has come for the clarets to fight back. Sanguine acceptance is no longer appropriate. Where there is darkness, gingers bring light. Where there is blondness, redheads bring colour. All power to the Ginger Liberation Organisation, and all those who GLO.