Jimmy carr

Thursday

Winston Marshall

When did artists become the mob?

‘The mob’s going to want a chicken to kill and they won’t care much who it is,’ wrote John Steinbeck. ‘Why don’t people look at mobs not as men, but as mobs? A mob nearly always seems to act reasonably, for a mob.’ I’ve been thinking about those words in recent days as more ‘cancelled’ headlines fill the news. I was a co-founding member of the band Mumford and Sons, which I quit last year. I praised a book critical of far-left extremism in the United States and all hell broke loose, so I decided better to leave my band and save my bandmates the trouble. Better that than stay

Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

In defence of bad jokes

I was once at a terrific Shabbat dinner where late in the evening one of the other guests suddenly said: ‘OK, who’s got the best Holocaust joke?’ Even people who know something about Jewish humour might be surprised by this. I said that one Holocaust-related joke I knew was the story from the 1970s of the Monty Python crew being invited to Germany to film a television series there. The Germans had called the Pythons to say that of course they had no humour of their own in Germany and would like to import some. The Pythons agreed, arrived in Munich and were promptly taken to Dachau. In retrospect, this

Tuesday

Sam Holmes

The truth about Jimmy Carr’s ‘offensive’ joke

Jimmy Carr is known as the hardest-working man in comedy. He loves making people laugh and most of all he likes making people laugh at the things they know they shouldn’t. He also loves making money and knows full well that audiences have become a lot more sensitive in recent years. That’s why he opens his Netflix show by saying: ‘Before we start, a quick trigger warning. Tonight’s show contains jokes about terrible things. Things that may have affected you and the people you love. But these are just jokes. They’re not the terrible things.’ If you continued watching after that and were offended, I’m sorry you were upset but

Monday

Steerpike

SNP councillor: ‘Prosecute Jimmy Carr’s audience’

Oh dear. It seems that the most illiberal party in Great Britain is at it again. In the nationwide haste to condemn the comedian Jimmy Carr for his remarks about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in his Netflix special, an elected councillor from (who else?) the SNP has called for prosecutions. Not just for Carr himself, mind you; Julie McKenzie, who sits on Argyll and Bute council, wants the many members of Carr’s audience prosecuted too for ‘applauding’ the remarks.  The show, called His Dark Material, was released on Christmas Day but received widespread attention last Friday after a clip was posted and shared online. Carr said:  When people talk about the

Thursday

Ben Sixsmith

Jimmy Carr’s anti-vaxxer joke isn’t funny

Jimmy Carr was once the smug face of shock comedy. As a stand-up comedian, and a host of various comedy shows, he used to joke with his trademark poker face about looks, disabilities and sexual violence. The Welsh, the Scots and obese women and children were also targets. When controversy inevitably came, Carr stood his ground. He caused uproar in 2009 by joking: ‘Say what you like about those servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a f**king good Paralympic team in 2012.’ Carr said sorry for that gag, but he insisted: ‘My intention was only to make people laugh.’ Does Carr still hold true to that view? His new special