'Nobody banned Christmas!'

Comedian Stewart Lee tells Richard Bacon why he's prepared to defend political correctness as part of his comedy act.

Lee cites the example of 'Winterval', an initiative by Birminham City Council to combine religious celebrations which some believed was an attempt to ban Christmas.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• bacon
• lee
• stewart
• richard
• comedy
• political
• correctness
• birmingham
• city
• council
• winterval
• stand
• up
• jokes
• offence
• bbc
• radio
• five
• live

[santana26491]

Stewart Lee has an awesome laugh.

[alfamonk]

He's right.

[paddymourinho]

@Beelzeboogie no shit sherlock

[Beelzeboogie]

@Kanonite That they are. But they aren't going to change, they'll always be pricks. Might as well make a quid or two out of them.

[Kanonite]

@Beelzeboogie his audience being ignorant feral idiots!

[i7omahawki]

@Beelzeboogie Doesn't that make it worse not better?

[MunkiZee]

"institutionalised politeness" :) very good

[sratus]

Stewart Lee has a horrible laugh

[1978deus]

@Beelzeboogie That's free speech not political correctness.

[1978deus]

@dorianleakey No it's not. PC is a futile attempt to avoid causing offence to particular groups of people. Hence, it's popularity in politics where success depends on getting as much people to swallow your lies as possible. Respect is an entirely different thing and goes a lot further than just physical characteristics, sexual orientation or whether you have a disability or not.

As for the bad management, positive discrimination wouldn't exist without PC.

[Beelzeboogie]

I don't actually think Clarkson is actually all that bad. I think much of it is a public persona, he knows his audience. I'm not sure that he believes half of the things he says.

[Beelzeboogie]

@1978deus Theirs always been a kind of political correctness, if it was 1911 and I publicly called King George a stupid cunt, it wouldn't have gone down too well in political circles. There's always been political correctness, maybe it took a different form from the political correctness we have today, maybe it wasn't CALLED politcal correctness, but functionally it was the same thing.