It's satire, people

I finally got round to watching this week's Have I Got News For You tonight. I've been complaining about how tame the programme has been this series, wondering if the people on the panel were being warned off making jokes about politicians with a general election coming up next month - or if they maybe just weren't very funny. But it picked up last night.

A lot of political parties got sent up: Conservatives, Labour, Libdems, SNP. One set of jokes was about Theresa May's habit of repeating the same phrases over and over. Andy Hamilton, a very sharp satirist (and one of my favourite regulars on HIGNFY) wondered if Theresa was showing signs of Alzheimer's. He immediately said he was not suggesting she had dementia but later he continued the theme, pointing out that she was accompanied on her 'canvassing' by a young man whose job was to show her how to ring doorbells.

You can see his contribution here:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/viewers-outrage-as-comedian-andy-hamilton-jokes-that-theresa-may-might-have-dementia-on-bbcs-have-i-a3532276.html

It seems viewers were 'outraged' by this. I haven't seen Jeremy Corbyn or Diane Abbott or Tim Farron objecting to how they were satirised. Nor has Andy Hamilton objected to being sent up himself for his role as the voice of Captain Squid on a Nickelodeon cartoon series for kids. Or Ian Hislop for being joshed with about teaching his facial expressions to his African Grey parrot.

It would be good to know if the BBC did in fact get complaints about Andy Hamilton's jokes or if the UK public is really pretty mature and educated and understands what satire is. That would mean, of course, that the (London) Evening Standard, now edited by George Osborne, was out there where George usually is, on a very shaky branch of a very shaky tree.

If it was up to me we'd see and hear more of people like Andy Hamilton, but it looks as if the only satire shows left are HIGNFY and the News Quiz - both BBC productions. How surprising then to find that the illiberal ole USA has many more satire shows than we have. But then they have Donald Trump...