Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The PC Brigade: A very big tent

Dumb people are blaming David Jason saying sorry for a crap joke on the 'PC Brigade'. The PC Brigade? Really? Let's look at how the PC Brigade are composed in this instance:

- Mediawatch UK, the stridently anti-fun broadcast watchdog who get upset with virtually everything ever, including blasphemy, swearing, sex and just about everything else in the world, if it's shown on TV. See the skill Mediawatchwatch for more.

- The Ramadhan Foundation, whose values can be found here.

The PC Brigade is a very big tent, isn't it? Well, either that or dumb people ascribe 'PCgonemad' to things that are nothing whatsoever to do with political correctness. And are the Mail being entirely honest with us about this?

Sir David Jason forced to say sorry after making a 'racist' joke on live radio

Who said it was racist? The Mail haven't quoted anyone saying it was racist. The only people who thought it might have been racist were Jason's own PR team:

'He thought it was nothing more than a light hearted joke and doesn't see it as racist but is naturally very, very sorry that people did.'

Which people? I'm not saying no-one did, but who did? Some listeners to the radio station? Anyone? Do some listeners complaining to a radio station equal the PC Brigade? Must we also shove them into the big tent as well as part of the spectral secret organisation? Anyway, the Mail don't say that, so I mustn't put up a strawman - however, their readers do, for example this charming gentleman:

What a farce. I suppose it would be perfectly OK for a Pakistani to make a joke about a white englishman.
This is PC gone mad.
Roll on the revolution.

who lives in, let me see

- Tony ex pat, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 25/3/2009 11:49

a country which has a rather extreme form of Sharia Law rather than British democracy. I don't think he'd find it 'perfectly OK' to have freedom of speech where he lives. Though believe me, he's welcome to try. I think there's worse people in Jeddah than the PC Brigade, mind.

Also:

For God's sake, get a life. This PC nonsense is just going too far.

says

- David, Tenerife, 25/3/2009 11:51

of course. Of course he's not in the country where this broadcast happened, where it took place, where David Jason lives, where the PC spectre supposedly hangs over the country like a pall of fear.

Another point though: the Mail appears to suggest that Jason was 'forced' to apologise. Was he? Who forced Britain's best-loved actor, someone with enormous public warmth on his side and pretty much bulletproof when it comes to his image, into an apology? Why would he apologise for something he wasn't ashamed of... unless he actually was sorry about it?

Was he really forced? Is the PC Brigade - two pressure groups and some people who may or may not have phoned up a radio station or written to Ofcom (though they probably didn't) - really that powerful? Really? Or not?

That joke in full:

"What do you call a Pakistani cloakroom attendant? Me hat, me coat."

Don't think it's racist (which is probably why even the Mail couldn't find anyone stupid enough to go on the record saying it was). Is Mahatma even a particularly Pakistani term, though? I don't know myself. Is it offensive? I don't know that either. What I do know is that the Mail, as ever, knows how to light the blue touchpaper, just as they did yesterday. They know what they're doing, and as ever, their readers don't disappoint:

The well-established tolerance of the British is rapidly being eroded by these immigrants who want to impose their own practices and values on us.

Congratulations. That's definitely genuinely racist, unlike Jason's joke.

Although:

I look forward to daily mail readers condemning Sir David Jason as did for Jonathen Ross.

Haha! That comment got voted down considerably by fellow readers. Wonder why?

- Omar sheikh, Batley, West yotkshire,

Oh I'm sure that's not got anything to do with it.

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