Jo Brand and the death of comedy

I have celebrated John Bercow, eulogised Martin McGuinness and urged Spectator readers to vote Labour. So I appreciate I’m on thin ice with a defence of Jo Brand, and since the hefty lefty and I are of similar girth, that metaphor could end badly. Yet the news she is being investigated by police over a joke ought to bring even the most phlegmatic conservative to the barricades. Some things are just wrong, even if Brendan O’Neill is against them too. 

Appearing as a guest on Radio 4 panel programme Heresy on Tuesday, Brand riffed on the phenomenon of ‘milkshaking’, in which progressives throw chilled beverages over people they disagree with because when they go low, we go high. Victims have included Nigel Farage and the guy who self-identifies as Tommy Robinson. Brand quipped: ‘Why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?’

A stream of headlines followed, most feigning outrage but none identifying the real top line: the appearance of an actual joke on a Radio 4 comedy show.