Stewart Lee has now entered the current debate on comedy, politics and political correctness with an article in the Guardian concerning the ‘politically correct comedy clique’ which is said to be targeting UKIP. 

In a typically pithy piece Lee referred to Andrew Lawrence’s recent controversial Facebook post and Nigel Farage’s recent article about contemporary comedy and said that comedy was having it’s “Pastor Niemöller moment”, namechecking the famous poem about the importance of standing up to persecution and reworking it with a topical spin: “First they came for the immigrants, but I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. Then they came for Lenny Henry, but I did not speak out because I was not Lenny Henry. And then they came for the TV panel-show comedians – and there was no one left to speak for me." 

Lee went on to say that Nigel Farage had asserted the UKIP was being targeted by a “liberal elite of relentless bores” before going on to add that “You don’t need to be part of a liberal media elite controlling the flow of information to find the Ukips funny.” He then cited various UKIP-related incidents that wrote their own punchlines, such as Mike Read’s recent calypso and the references by Godfrey Bloom to “bong bongo land”.

Lee added that there were attempts to give funny right-of-centre comedians air-time, the trouble was that there weren’t enough of them. He continued by concluding that there was previously no “liberal comedy cabal” but maybe, in the light of recent events, Nigel Farage has created one,

Read the full Guardian article here.