Comedy and Freedom

Reflections on the UnHerd debate.

The other night I did a ‘balloon debate’ for UnHerd / Living Freedom. That’s basically the intellectual parlour game version of Britain’s Got Talent (which I have also done).

Six competitors present a case, and the audience vote to decide who goes through and who should be kicked out of the ‘balloon’ (there is no actual balloon).

It was a bit of a departure for me, but compared to doing Britain’s Got Talent at the Palladium (I got four yeses btw) it was small beer.

And that was my key advantage. I haven’t been to a posh school. I’ve never really done a debate. I don’t even like debates to be honest. I like people agreeing with me and saying I’m great.

But what I have done is eleven hard years on the standup comedy circuit, which naturally gave me an edge.

We each had to defend a cultural artefact that best represented freedom. It could be a book, film, play, or anything really.

One guy chose Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, a 912 page novel about the Soviet Union (I think). Emma Webb, with characteristic seriousness, chose the cross. Charlie Bentley-Astor chose the Spitfire.

I went for Brass Eye, a satirical TV show from 1997.

To me, it represents a high water mark of free speech that we have fallen away from. A typical quote from the series, which I read out on the night, goes as follows:

Luckily the amount of heroin I use is harmless. I inject about once a month on a purely recreational basis - fine. But what about other people, less stable, less educated, less middle class than me? Builders, or blacks for example. If you’re one of those, my advice to you is leave well alone. 

Imagine if Chris Morris said that in 2022. He’d be more cancelled than if Kanye West invaded Ukraine.