This article begins by recalling a recent court case about bullying in a school playground and about how the case was trivialised in certain sections of the media, with much discourse of "political correctness gone mad", and so forth, and of the need for good old-fashioned "common sense". Leaders of teachers' unions took a different view, rightly, but were denounced as "hags and thought police". The article then recalls the history of the term "political correctness" and outlines the approaches to racist bullying that are presented at length in recently published DfES advice, and that are very different from the crude simplicities of typical media coverage.