UK Politics Thread XIII: The Brexit Ship Departs

[Greed and Death]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

Found one he is fucking hillarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QKWlNw740o

[Ifreann]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

Boris Johnson routinely gets laughs.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

Well the token woman or ethnic minority comedian on BBC panel shows is often someone you've never heard of who isn't very funny because there's a narrow pool and the few good ones are sometimes not available.

I imagine you'll have a lot of cringe at first but eventually conservatives will see themselves represented on such shows and more of the next generation of tory boys will aspire to a career in the industry. So eventually there will be a greater pool of talent to draw from. It'd be nice if they were funny, but the Beeb must prioritise its wider social purpose as an incubator of diverse voices.

[Vassenor]

Also according to the Telegraph, it looks like the Director General has decided to axe the BBC's comedy content for being "too left-wing" and apparently being biased against the government, Trump and Brexit.

Sounds pretty snowflake-y to me, if true. Mostly because all I've seen is a photograph of the abstract in the paper, and the full article is behind the paywall.

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

[Fartsniffage]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

I don't imagine Jim Davidson gets too many calls from Aunty these days.

[Kowani]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

There is a reason right-wing comedy is unfunny...

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Maybe the BBC could do a programme of Chris Grayling walking into things.

[Celritannia]

^^^This.

The House of Peers, as someone suggested in the other thread as a renaming, for Peer Review, which I think is quite clever.

I'd rather we change MP titles to lordships, make them the house of (elected) lords, and then use the commons as a demarchic house with the final say and the ability to approve or reject legislation.

Grab random citizens for each one, and allow them to attend remotely.

That would need a lot of constitutional change.
Where as the idea of just changing the HoL to an appointed peer-review chamber will not alter much constitutional change.

[State of Turelisa]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

[Vassenor]

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

I mean to handle the "rare in the profession" bit, it's probably because people don't really go for punch-down humour any more. Thank god.

[Philjia]

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

It's literally just Geoff Norcott, and he doesn't like the Conservative Party either.

[Souseiseki]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

the only right wing comedian i know off the top of my head is kelsey grammar. who tried to start a right wing comedy show. which failed miserably.

generally speaking, that most comedians are left wing is not a coincidence.

[Souseiseki]

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

It's literally just Geoff Norcott, and he doesn't like the Conservative Party either.

yeah i would be very surprised even if there were right wing comedians that supported the tories. other ones that might be right-wing that i can think of trend towards the purple square instead of the blue square, and even for those in the blue square i'd imagine there's not much reason for them to support what has essentially become a coalition of morality grumps and landlords ruled by robber barons with a few "libertarians" coping. they'd probably want, y'know, an actual respectable party. then idk i can't really claim to know how the minds of unironic tory supporters work.

[Nuroblav]

the only right wing comedian i know off the top of my head is kelsey grammar. who tried to start a right wing comedy show. which failed miserably.

generally speaking, that most comedians are left wing is not a coincidence.

Yeah it's to be expected. I imagine most being your typical 'I just wanna grill' centrist, or at least having an 'I just wanna grill' felling to them. I doubt many would be as left-wing as comedians like Alexei Sayle or Frankie Boyle, but conservative comedians being a rarity is unsurprising.

[The New California Republic]

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

Sooo....not at all rare then.

[Great Mann]

I am of the opinion that the U.K. will not rejoin the EU, much to my disappointment. I lament the outcome of the Brexit Referendum and honestly believe Brexit has put our sacred union in a terrible situation, so much so that I legitimately fear the breakup of this blessed country.

All I can hope for is some vague retention of global power and the continuation of our union, ideally the strengthening of it and the end of traitorous separatist sentiments.

[State of Turelisa]

The only right-wing comedians are dead, and were banned by the BBC.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMBIPd5JSiw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ASae9Fws8

[Vassenor]

The only right-wing comedians are dead, and were banned by the BBC.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMBIPd5JSiw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ASae9Fws8

When were they banned?

[Hirota]

Check out my mad internet skills yo. Anyhoo, if the BBC wants to keep it's licence fee, it needs to be more representative - people have to feel it's worth watching. If that means curbing some of the worse excesses - like Jo Brand advocating throwing acid even in jest - then that's not a terrible thing.

So which right-wing comedians have been blacklisted by the BBC then?

So where did I say they were? Or was this yet another of your famously daft rhetorical questions?

It's literally just Geoff Norcott, and he doesn't like the Conservative Party either.

Here is the problem - a lot of people seem to be very confused about the difference between comedians and cheerleaders. I don't think someone has to be "left" or "right" wing (as if relying on a quirk of French history is really an adequate term) to take the piss out of the Tories, Labour or anyone else. But it should be very obvious that if the BBC wants to remain funded, it has to make some effort to represent it's viewers, and that is not limited to the "left."

I'm trying to think of a funny Tory comedian and coming up blank.

I don't really think of disclosure of political affiliation as being required to be funny. But I know Leo Kearse did a show called "Right-Wing Comedian" at the Fringe a few years back - although that doesn't mean he automatically is right wing. The other one I know of is Nicholas de Santo. He's said he's right wing as part of an act - although again, stand up doesn't mean you automatically have those beliefs.

[Philjia]

Well, at least if the BBC becomes entrapped in making middle of the road lowbrow mulch from a parallel universe where alternative comedy never happened, it might persuade Channel 4 to start pumping out the kind of insane shit they did in the late 90s and early 2000s like Jam.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

This got me thinking about what comedy was like in Germany during the Nazi era. I'd never heard of Tran and Helle before. I wonder if there is any academic research on Nazi comedians?

[West Leas Oros 2]

Right-wingers in the comedian profession are as rare as gays in professional football.

I mean to handle the "rare in the profession" bit, it's probably because people don't really go for punch-down humour any more. Thank god.

Because punching-up is always absolutely okay and has no bad implications ever? Call me the humour police, but punching is generally frowned upon.

[Chan Island]

I mean to handle the "rare in the profession" bit, it's probably because people don't really go for punch-down humour any more. Thank god.

Because punching-up is always absolutely okay and has no bad implications ever? Call me the humour police, but punching is generally frowned upon.

"Punching" has a slightly separate meaning in comedy and has done for a long time now. I suspect you're thinking more of that time Richard Spencer ate a knuckle sandwich.

[Souseiseki]

the more i think about it, the more hard brexit really is the end.

in 2014 you could have done a bit of the vow and remain, bam union secured for 30 years.

in 2016 you could have went for a soft brexit, bam union secured for 20 years.

but with england wanting hard brexit enough that it's willing to break up the UK to accomplish it and scotland wanting to remain in the EU enough that it's willing to break up the UK to accomplish it i really can't see a way to save the union. for the first time, i am legitimately out of ideas. all you could do is hard swing to soft brexit, tell england to suck it up and hope scotland accepts the gesture but even that might not work and will never happen politically.

[Crylante]

I remember going to the Fringe in 2018 and on a news report I saw about it they were advertising this guy who made a very big deal about him being a pro-Brexit, right-wing comedian.

Two of those three things about him were true. He spent most of his interview making completely unfunny jokes about the "authoritarian left" ruining Britain.

I hope to god they don't get people like him on with this. The one time I saw Geoff Norcott on Mock the Week he was fine - he could actually tell a joke without spending an entire routine unfunnily punching down, so I'd rather people like him get the gig if they have to do this.