WOKE WEDNESDAYS #31

In the age of equality, DEI and reverse discrimination, the issue of slavery reparations may sound a little over the top.  Even though black people across the West now experience a privileged first world existence, there still appears to be a huge chip on the shoulder of some.  Prominent black activists who already enjoy more wealth than most native Europeans, continue to call for reparations on behalf of people who were never slaves or have ever experienced slavery.  Such grievance activists are regularly rolled out on shows like Good Morning Britain to wind up the masses with their anti-white drivel.

The fact is that no white person alive in the West today has ever kidnapped Africans, put them in chains and transported them around the world to go pick cotton in a field for 18 hours a day.  Why should someone pay for injustices meted out by people they never knew?

Secondly, no black person alive in the West today has been put to work as a slave.  Even in the United States, which was a relative latecomer in abolishing the trade, you would have to go back several generations before tracing an ancestor who experienced slavery firsthand.

The absurdity of paying someone compensation for something they never experienced was perhaps best summed up by US comedian Rob Schneider.  He was addressing the reparation activities in the bastion state of the far left - the socialist Republic of California.  The California Reparations Task Force was set up in the wake of the Floyd riots and is the first such organisation of its kind.

If you haven't seen Rob's stand-up, we would urge you to get on YouTube and look him up.  Much of his comedy these days sends up his former political base, for like many he has grown into a staunch Republican.  Such a turnaround is hard to grasp for the left, despite the fact it's always older world-weary people who make the shift from left to right, hardly ever the reverse.  There's a reason for that.  It's called getting older and wiser or, more crudely, waking the fuck up.

And yes, there were slaves in California, but slavery was abolished in the territory by the time it joined the United States in 1850.  So strictly speaking, Rob is correct!

Last week's woke bench meme generated nine comments and nine shares on Facebook, including a testy exchange with a troll who has since deleted her orginal comment (but not before we screenshot it!)

CAPTAIN FLIP FLOP

Libertarian comic Dominic Frisby has released a hilarious musical take down of the Labour leader, entitled Captain Flip Flop.  Watch below.

You can follow Dominic on X, Facebook and YouTube.

NETFLIX SPECIALS UPSET THE LEFT

Some light relief with our first YouTube video of 2024, courtesy of stand-up routines from Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais which have upset the woke mob.  Comedy will die if the left have it their way, but thankfully it's not easy to cancel ultra wealthy established comics who are featured on what is already one of the most woke platforms there is - Netflix.

The jokes that have upset the left are both featured in our video, hosted as usual by Richey.  Watch below or on YouTube (eight minute watch).

THE KINDERGARTEN'S TAKEN OVER

US political commentator Bill Maher is one of the few high-profile American liberals that actually understands liberalism.  While most of the other so-called 'liberals' are in actual fact constantly triggered lefties, Maher abhors cancel culture and political correctness.  It was with his dedication to free speech in mind that he recently delivered one of his finest monologues yet - a searing critique of a triggered reporter at the Washington Post and the Post's response to her warblings.

The furore at the newspaper began when one of its journalists retweeted a comedian who made the following joke: "Every girl is bi, you just have to figure out if it's polar or sexual".  For the rest of the story, please click below for Meher's eight minute demolition of woke snowflakery...

HIGNFY BEDWETTERS

The Beeb's long-running Have I Got News For You has a Twitter account and, as with the show itself, the tweeters exhibit a prominent left-leaning bias.  As such it has developed a very left-leaning fan base.  However, a couple of tweets on Friday reduced the lefties to their natural state of crying like small infants when faced with something that runs contrary to their own beliefs.  The bedwetting fest reached epidemic proportions when the following was tweeted from the account...

This followed a separate tweet posted an hour earlier, which poked fun at Labour's suggestion that Angela Rayner's presence at the 'beers for Keir' event in Durham was a 'genuine mistake'.  Both that tweet and the one above led to dozens of angry tweets from leftists, outraged that their favourite show had finally shown some balance...

Leftist bedwetting, can't beat it!

ASHWORTH DOES STAND UP

It's fair to say that Jonathan Ashworth is unintentionally funny.  The shadow health secretary has an impressive gag reel from the last 18 months of remote TV interviews.  His young children have twice interrupted Zoom interviews and his phone slipped from its holder during another.  An interview in a windy street played havoc with his umbrella before the lighting equipment fell on him.  He is one of those Labour MPs who is so hapless it takes an effort to dislike him.

It was a different story at Leicester's 'Stand Up Challenge' where Ashworth was actually trying to be funny.  The charity event formed part of the city's comedy festival and the MP for Leicester South agreed to take part.  It didn't start well for Ashworth, but he won the audience over gradually - in particular thanks to his eight inches of mail joke, which was genuinely funny.

The challenge is supposed to be a presentation of five minutes of 'original material', but at over eight minutes not only did Ashworth over-run it's arguable that he presented anything original.  Most, if not all of his routine, was regurgitating amusing anecdotes from other politicians, including an old Gordon Brown skit.  His Brown impression was not bad, but there was no mention of Leicester's biggest joke - even bigger than Ashworth himself - the member for Leicester East.  Poor old Claudia Webbe never got a look in.

All in all it wasn't totally dreadful, but it was painful to watch at times.  Click below for Ashworth's full routine.

It will be no great surprise to learn that Ashworth did not win the challenge.  The victor was Matt Holt, whose winning routine can be seen here.

FOX MAN AND VIRAL

A new Spitting Image sketch featuring puppets of Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips has upset the woke mob on Twitter.  The sketch depicts Starmer as a useless superhero called 'Fox Man' while Jess Phillips is a foul-mouthed rival superhero called 'Viral'.  The portrayal of Phillips bizarrely led to accusations of sexism and misogyny, despite the fact she is shown as the loud-mouthed self-obsessed 'feminist' that she is in real life.

Stand-up comedian Matt Forde, who writes for the show and voices Keir Starmer, also came in for a lot of stick after the clip was posted.  It's not clear if he wrote this sketch, but surely a self-confessed Labour supporter (and former party member) would know that Keir Starmer is hardly a driving force of hard left policies, as suggested in the clip.

You can see the full sketch below.

Oddly, Jess Phillips has yet to comment.  There's a first time for everything.

LABOUR BACK CHUBBY BAN

The hoo-ha surrounding a Roy Chubby Brown gig in Sheffield has attracted the attention of local Labour politicians, eager to jump on the woke bandwagon.  Mr Brown, aka Royston Vasey, has been performing at Sheffield City Hall for decades, but his January 2022 slot has been cancelled by the venue's management.  Andrew Snelling, chairman of Sheffield City Trust, said of the decision: "We understand that some people will be disappointed with our decision but we must uphold the standards and values that we promote and expect across our venues".

Labour politicians have since come out in support of the ban.  The MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough wrote directly to Snelling to express her support for the decision.  Gill Furniss (pictured above right) posted the letter on her social media accounts to maximise her virtue signal (see below).

Cllr Terry Fox, the Labour leader of Sheffield City Council, echoed her sentiments.  But where were their howls of anguish in 2019 or 2018, or any of the previous years that Vasey has performed in Sheffield?

Once again the party appears to be at odds with public opinion.  While many people expressed distaste at Chubby's material, they supported his right to perform.  "If people don't like his comedy, then don't buy a ticket" - it's really that simple.  At the time of writing a Change petition has garnered almost 30,000 signatures and a protest will be held outside the venue on Friday.  The comedian has attracted support from a wide variety of political figures and commentators, including a local Muslim councillor.  Cllr Shaffaq Mohammed, of the Lib Dems, spoke to local newspaper The Star:

"This is akin to cold war soviets where they would control what people saw and what they watched and what they read.  We don't live in that.  We live in a liberal society and people have individual freedom to choose to live the life they want and as part of that, they can choose to go watch a comedy show behind closed doors where no children are allowed.  It's the start of a very slippery slope.  Which comedian will be deemed not to be appropriate to come to Sheffield?  Would they move on to banning books and DVD's in libraries next?  Would people be banned from watching Roy Chubby Brown on YouTube next?  Would they stop people from listening to rap music because clearly some of the lyrics can and are offensive?  Where is this going to stop?  Our law is to defend the individual's right to choose and always go against any government that tries to dictate to people what's good or bad".

Here, here.

Andrew Doyle also used his platform on GB News to criticise the move.

Chubby Brown also released his own lengthy statement in response to the ban.

BITING COMMENTARY FROM ANDREW LAWRENCE

It's been a rough year on the comedy circuit, with comedians forced to raise their social media game and plead for donations.  One of those who has made the best of a bad situation has been former mainstream comic Andrew Lawrence.  He was excommunicated from TV and radio in 2015 after criticising the dominance of left-wing metropolitan types on the circuit.  What was once seen as 'alternative comedy' is now the only accepted form of comedy at the likes of the BBC.

Despite his exile, Lawrence continued to tour - until the pandemic.  However, that hasn't stopped him from producing some sharp-witted commentary on proceedings, with almost daily videos posted to his social media accounts.  Much of his comedy is now presented through a variety of characters, including Brian Shithouse, Johnny Smugface and Constable Peter Pisspot.  He's also produced some hilarious shorts as Joe Biden and the twat formerly known as Prince Harry, in addition to mocking Antifa.

One of his most recent videos featured another of his caricatures - Keith Cuntabout - based on the almost extinct demographic that is the working class Cockney.  With commentary about the Great Reset and its insidious agenda, anti-lockdown Keith is clearly not as daft as his coarse dialect suggests.  Clever stuff from Lawrence - watch below or on YouTube.

For the full selection of Andrew Lawrence videos, please click here.  You can also follow him on Facebook.

GERVAIS SLAMS CANCEL CULTURE

It's hard to believe that Ricky Gervais endorsed Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.  The multi-talented comedian/actor/writer/director just speaks far too much sense these days.  Perhaps in hindsight he might appreciate how fortunate we all are to have avoided a Corbyn coalition of chaos.  Speaking to Kevin O'Sullivan on TalkRadio last weekend he obliterated the cancel culture of the left, labelling it 'fascism'.  O'Sullivan had asked Gervais if he thought The Office could be made in today's woke climate to which Gervais declared that the 'fascists' would ensure it wouldn't: "It's mob rule and that's what would compromise the comedy.  It's not that people wouldn't get it and love it, it's that the people in charge would be bullied".

Discussing the notion of 'offence', Gervais said that people who were constantly offended were dumbing down the ability to form a counter-argument: "Offence is good, because it makes you think and makes you come up with an argument.  What's happened recently is 'I'm offended' has replaced an argument".  Gervais finished by denouncing the absurdity of political discourse on social media: "If you're mildly left-wing on Twitter you're suddenly Trotsky and if you're mildly conservative you're Hitler.  And if you're centrist and you look at both arguments you're a coward".

Watch below.

COMEDY CLIPS: MAY

The original intention of Saturday night's comedy clips on the Facebook page was to inject some light relief into what has been a troubling time for many.  We'll review the slot towards the end of June as to whether to continue with it.  Meanwhile, here are the clips posted to Facebook in May.

Clip 9:  Dead Ringers 'Andrew Neil vs Diane Abbott'

Clip 10:  Corbyn Gives Directions

Clip 11:  Meggie Foster's Political Mimicry

Clip 12:  At Home With The Thunbergs

Clip 13:  Geoff Norcott 'Leave & Remain'

"NEVER TURN ON YOUR STAFF"

One of the rising social media stars of lockdown is the delightful Meggie Foster.  Her mime performances in which she mocks politicians and celebrities have had her followers in hysterics.  Her latest effort features none other than Sir Keir Starmer.  The Labour leader released a video over the weekend in which he declared he would have sacked Cummings if he were PM, but Meggie expertly contrasts this with an interview he gave earlier this year in which he says "you should never turn on your staff".  Watch below.

If you missed her earlier take on Diane Abbott's infamous interview with Nick Ferrari, click below.

You can follow Meggie's hilarious exploits on Twitter and on YouTube.

COMEDY CLIPS: MARCH

This is something we've introduced as a weekly feature on Facebook in direct response to the looming crisis our nation faces.  These are random comedy clips sourced from around the internet.  The thought process is simple - we could all do with a laugh right now.  We always cop flak when we deviate from the mission statement, so for clarification on how we intend to deal with the current situation please read the statement we put out earlier this week.

Meanwhile, here are all the clips we've put out this month.

Clip 1:  Ricky Gervais "Beret-wearers"

Clip 2:  Alistair Williams "Gender studies"

Clip 3:  Tracey Ullman "Jeremy Corbyn at the airport"

Clip 4:  Nick Heath "Corona commentary"