Jimmy Carr Sheffield: Roy Chubby Brown was just the start - reader's letter

This was not because I find him and his brand of humour especially funny but because I thought that banning him was wrong and not the way this country (and I had hoped this city) did things in a so called democracy.

Yes, we had the usual detractors making noises about how Mr Brown’s comedy offended them and after a debate by the local dictators on the council, it was decided that the minority view would prevail.

I say ‘minority view’ because despite a campaign and petition by supporters numbering 42,000 people who were against a ban, I saw no such support on this level from people who were allegedly offended by Mr Brown’s visit.

This was despite my challenge to Gill Furniss MP, who being a Labour politician wrote in support of the Labour Council, saying that a number of her constituents had written to her claiming they were offended. I suspect this number amounted to a handful.

I also intimated at the time that if we go down the road of banning artistes to our City Hall based on who might be offended, we were going down the slippery slope to full censorship.

Could Jimmy Carr be the next artiste to suffer from these sanctimonious guardians of the morals of Sheffield’s population?

I believe the old, and to my mind, common sense approach, of saying to people don’t attend if you might be offended, has been replaced by a desire to force a minority view on people and to punish those who might want to attend such an event.

It seems that I and Liberal Democrat Leader Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed are of the same mind on this issue in saying what happens next and where we go from here.

The opposing view is put forward by Coun Abtisam Mohamed who argues that racism is racism whether it’s a comedian or not.

Well, who are you to decide what makes me laugh?

I used to laugh outrageously at the comedian Dave Allen’s jokes about the Catholic Church and its practices. Does that make me anti-Catholic?

The point I’m trying to make is that people laugh at all sorts of situations, irrespective of what the subject matter is, but it doesn’t make them bad people.

I cannot laugh at modern-day comedy because I don’t find it funny and that is down to the individuals nowadays who (it appears) are so sensitive to life that they are offended by anything and everything.

I would love to know just what makes the likes of Coun Mohamed and Gill Furniss laugh out loud, but be careful, what you find funny someone else will find offensive.

I suppose I am writing in support of the right to be offensive because this often stimulates debate and change.

If you automatically ban things you don’t like, all you get is silence and a festering discontent by those to whom you have denied choice.

I said we were approaching a slippery slope by banning artistes, well I reckon we’re already on it!

Ray Cundy

Waterthorpe, S20