There are mentally ill people in all walks of life and with all different political persuasions.

If one tries to insist that only the right wing are violent what does one make of the IRA who tried to blow up and murder the entire Conservative cabinet and succeeded with a few of them

Should comedy be censored? Now, that we all live in a puritanical age.

Fair enough

I’d rather have a go on Richard Burton in a Millwall kit.

You are really arguing against yourself here. I did not make mention of any of the points that you reference. Merely that it’s a bit late to say “someone is going to get hurt soon”.

Vive le Roy!

I just want to comment on the double standards that are operating within society today.....they are truly breath taking.

The BBC needs to answer for its double standards. It isn't just funded by liberal centralists who agree with its mindset.

It has decided take certain social positions on opinions. For example it pushes political positions on feminism and race. We saw that it decided to sack Danny Baker almost instantly for perceived racism. For them....the context didn't matter.

Yet it defends Brand and in its commentary it's all about the context...quite rightly.....but the double standards are stark....their released commentary reveals a lot about their positions on several different fronts.

The treatment of Brand on speech contrasts with numerous other examples of how the less famous and celebrated within society are treated.

We have people regularly sacked for expressing opinions that a noisy but politically motivated minority object to.

The Police and Politicians have been major failures on protesting speech in this country in recent times.

We have Police knocking on people's doors for what it deems to be 'offensive tweets'......the Police literally enforcing 'thought policing' because the politicians passed extremely bad legislation allowing for that.

We had Count Dankula convicted over a Youtube video....we have Sargon investigated by Police and his views knowingly distorted.

I'll put Ricky Gervais's reaction to the Brand issue here. I might be even more liberal than him on this but generally on freedom of speech I think he talks a lot of sense.

'Freedom of speech is not being free of any consequences, it’s being free of prosecution, and no one should be prosecuted for a joke. Now your employers might have something different to say, but a joke is a joke.'

'What does annoy me is the hypocrisy of depending on whose side that person - the left support a left-wing person and the right support a right-wing person. The merits of a joke and principle in general should not be swayed by whose side that person is on politically. And that’s what people don’t like.'

'It’s crazy for me, any controversy over a joke, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say one joke’s okay he didn’t mean it, and no he’s a terrible person. It doesn’t sit well with me. Either jokes are allowed or they’re not, you can’t pick and choose what’s okay to joke about.'

Edited by Stirlingsays (17 Jun 2019 8.48pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)