This Age of Offense

I’ve been brewing a post on this topic for a day or two now, after the recent mini-scandals involving Thatch junior and Clarkson.

It seems to me that the centre-left consensus of the past decade has conspired to create a nation of hypersensitive types, who feel unable to accommodate any sort of offense, either in seriousness or in jest. It’s part of the culture of the apology, of compensation, political correctness, of fault assignment and blame management. I’m sure the leftist bureaucracy can fully approve those terms, and there are probably about 10,000 people employed in such positions in the NHS - ‘blame management consultant’, or ‘fault assignment coordinator’.

Some might know that I possess a fairly offensive sense of humour myself, and I don’t shy away from joking about supposedly taboo subject matter – race, religion, terrorism, etc. What infuriates me most is that supposedly near-the-knuckle comedienne Jo Brand was present during the Thatch junior ‘golliwogate’ (that’s g******gate for the lily-livered) and is rumoured to have found Thatch’s quip unacceptably offensive. What wholesale hypocrisy from this woman. I have seen plenty of Brand on television, both on stage and on shows such as QI and Have I Got News For You, and she is capable of causing far more offense to a much wider audience than Carol Thatcher.

Now, had Carol Thatcher not been joking about golliwogs, and had actually been systematically banding about colonial-era racist terminology in an effort to offend, then I might have sympathy with the BBC’s actions. But it was a joke, for fuck’s sake! Is there now a BBC humour code which excludes sensitive subject matter? Because if that were the case, we’d still be watching The Good Life, early episodes of The Goodies, and similarly inoffensive and tepid material. I’m not saying these comedies aren’t funny because they’re not offensive – that would be very childish. I’m just observing that near-the-knuckle humour makes people laugh. That includes jokes about race – because it’s risqué, precisely because it appears to risk offending people. Whether it’s the old pun about ‘entering a horse at the Grand National’ or the late Humphrey Lyttelton’s frequent, outrageous, and pre-watershed observations about Samantha’s lifestyle on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, this sort of humour has a long established tradition on the BBC, and its recent actions suggest it’s following a very dangerous path indeed.

Now, on to Clarkson. I am an enormous Top Gear fan – I am counting down the days to a new series, and watching the old ones again and again on Dave. Sure, I often find Jeremy’s surprisingly childish and dismissive attitude a little frustrating, but that’s always counterbalanced by the tremendous amusement caused by him consistently buying the worst car in a Cheap Cars Challenge. I would like to take this opportunity to examine Jeremy’s comments about Gordon Brown during his time in Australia doing Top Gear Live. He referred to the Prime Minister as:

‘a one-eyed Scottish idiot’

So, let’s examine those words one by one:

a: the indefinite article

one-eyed: well this could mean that the Prime Minister has literally only one eye, in the middle of this face. According to recent television footage, this clearly isn’t the case. The Prime Minister is, however, blind in one eye. Is this wildly offensive? Not really – it’s crass and insensitive – and I’m sure Gordon is thick-skinned enough to take it.

Scottish: it is unarguably the case that Gordon Brown is indeed Scottish. Why is this more insulting than if he were British? Surely ‘British idiot’ bears the same insult value as ‘Scottish idiot’? What about ‘Welsh idiot’? No sniggering at the back. How about ‘golliwog idiot’? Smarting yet, lefties?

idiot: well this is obviously down to one’s own opinion, but taking into account Gordon’s track record as Shadow Chancellor, Chancellor, and Prime Minister, I come to the conclusion that yes, he probably is. If your name’s Derek and you spend your time adding all of Iain Dale’s followers to your Twitter feed, recent emails and deluded rants provide evidence that you might disagree with this view.

Taken as one phrase then, one-eyed Scottish idiot doesn’t appear to cause enormous offense – it’s a combination of unavoidable fact (one-eyed, Scottish) and opinion (idiot). If you find this hugely offensive, you’re a c**t of the highest order. 

In other news: 9/11 – yes or no? Diana: was the car made of marzipan? Religion – is it all a load of old bollocks? Race – was Hitler right?