Dear Mary: What should I do about a Lib Dem friend who can no longer take a joke?

Q. I sent a WhatsApp message to a Lib Dem friend of 15 years. ‘How are you finding being a Lib Dem? I must say a £50 billion Remain dividend would be rather nice — perhaps something to put on the side of a bus so I can prosecute your leader when it never happens! Clearly, Boris is the only contender for PM.’ This message was intended to be provocatively humorous and I expected a witty and combative reply in return. Instead she has told me she can’t understand why I would ‘swipe’ at her like this. Should I try to explain that I was joking, or accept she is now so woke that she has lost all sense of irony and just leave the relationship to wither?
— S.F., London WC1

A. Perhaps she would have laughed in the past, but now that virtue-signalling has replaced religion she would have seen your tease as a form of heresy which she could not countenance. It’s important to keep old friendships in good repair, however, so humour her by apologising and then move on. And in future, just ‘don’t mention the war’.

Q. I have invited a small house party to stay over New Year. Now one of the number has started dating someone who’s a bit pushy and I am worried that he will ask me if he can bring her. I really don’t want her to be in the group — nor do the others particularly, not just because she would alter the vibe as the rest of us are all old friends but especially because I was hoping to get with him myself and it would make me miserable to see them together, using my parents’ rather wonderful house as a platform to cement their relationship.