Jo Brand, comments anyone - battery acid joke.....Archived Message
Posted by John Monro on June 14, 2019, 1:20 pm
I've just watched a Sky video with Jonathan Pie creator Tom Walker discussing this with David Vance, Alt New journalist and I've listened to the clip under dicussion.
Perhaps no-one will agree with me, but I found the joke very tasteless, actually more than this, irresponsible. Perhaps in more benign political times it could be brushed aside, but there's a lot of people with pretty short fuses out there at the moment. And I can't forget there are a significant number of people out in the community who might be able to tell us exactly what it's like to have battery acid thrown in their face. There were 601 such attacks in London in 2016 alone.
I think Tom Walker was wrong. Yes, people laughed, but with some discomfort I imagine, we do laugh at shocking comments. But I don't think that's relevant. Tom says you have to look at the context - certainly, here was a context, a comedy show, But surely there is a wider context which Tom rather ignored - of real violence and threats of violence. Of polarisation and talking past each other, of the failure of compromise. All politicians and people in the public life now put up with appalling levels of abuse directed at them, mostly anonymously but just as disturbing nevertheless.The UK had an assassination not that long ago. MPs are advised to take taxis home. Women politicians in particular are subject to some of the vilest threats. Corbyn's had British soldiers taking practice shots at a picture of his face.
This is the wider context that Tom forgets. Senior politicians themselves and some of the tabloids have upped the ante on abusive language directed at their supposed political enemies. Thise language and behaviour is toxic.
Making jokes about throwing acid into people's faces is not, and never could be, actually funny. I see Jo Brand has now apologised, rightly, and admitted the "joke. was crass and ill-judged", and that part of the programme has been deleted. She should go a bit further and apologise to all in the UK who may have, with some substance, been offended or sincerely shocked.
I believe Farage has complained to the police. With Jo backtracking and the BBC taking action, hopefully that will be the end of the matter.
The trouble is it makes Farage look like a victim of the left and the BBC and he'll play it for all its worth. (The fact that the BBC has prostituted itself to his presence on numerous occasions will be totally ignored.)