Stop Witch hunting ross and Brand: by Peter Tatchell

[morningpaper]

Stop Witch hunting Ross and Brand

soooooo totally agree with this article

I am wondering which comedians will be fired next?

I guess people won't be happy until the BBC is running costume dramas 24/7.

i agree

I won't be happy until the BBC is running costume dramas 24/7.

Message withdrawn

i agree it is all getting a bit daft now
on the radio this morning it said something about maybe the BBC will have to rethink broadcasting "edgy" humour or something like that
christ
does that mean we're going to get Les dennis/Jimmy Tarbuck instead?

time to get things in perspective people!!

Good article

They're overpaid eejits who aren't even funny. Hope Ross gets sacked.

He's a knob.

He should be against the wall with hedge fund managers and investment bankers.

And it's been an entire week since the BBC has run a Jane Austen based programme.

WTF? I'm starting to experience withdrawal symptoms.

damn that reminds me I didn't watch Little Dorrit last week
was it any good?

'damn that reminds me I didn't watch Little Dorrit last week
was it any good?'

It's Dickensian but not 'A Tale of Two Cities'.

There's your answer right there!

Me too - the whole thing is bloody ridiculous. They apologised and Andrew Sachs doesn't even seem to be THAT upset.

Dickens = yawn.

Except A Tale of Two Cities .

oh i don't find Dickens yawny...so I should love A Tale of 2 cities then...

I like Brand when he's being funny at his own expense. I don't like Ross under any circs. And what they did was puerile and unpleasant and not funny.

But they apologised and Sachs wasn't that bothered. And all the furore was the fault of the papers.

However if that's edgy humour I think I can do without it .

depends what the alternative to edgy is!

ross is an arse though, it's true

That fact that he did all this and thought it was funny goes show how unfunny he is.

He's beyond lame and should have been sacked ages ago.

That fact that he did all this and thought it was funny goes show how unfunny he is.

He's beyond lame and should have been sacked ages ago.

Hmm well I like satirical comedy. I don't mind people having the piss taken out of them. I like weird humour. But I can't help thinking of the sort of thing we did in the sixth form - ring up people and saying rude words

It was badly thought out imo.

However did feel it was all getting a bit out of hand when Gordon Brown felt the need to comment.

I agree with that article, seems very over the top. They're twits, they were a bit rude, but have heard far worse don't really understand why all the overreacting. 30,000 complaints! Shame we can't motivate people to react like that about something useful.

I do think its got out of hand and agree with the gist of his piece. Agree public outcry is highly selective.

Having said that I think both Ross and Brand are overpaid and over rated and wouldn't feel a great loss if I never saw or listened to either one of them ever again.

Then again I do have an "off" switch on my telly and radio as does every other of the 30,000 people that complained. I don't want to go back to Jimmy Tarbuck etc. (God forbid) but then again the whole lad culture and it being perfectly acceptable to make jokes about shagging women annoys me immensely. Would be nice if Peter Tatchell had made a nod to this in his article.

Sorry, but that is a (typically) witless article by Peter Tatchell.

Personally, I don't find what they said/ did particularly offensive and it also seems like Sachs himself wasn't that offended by it, merely calling for an apology rather than for them to be fired.

The point, however, is that the BBC is a public corporation, funded by public money and as such is answerable to the public. In this case, the public was pretty clearly offended by what Wossy and Bland said. In all the other cases which Tatchell outlines the public was equally clearly not offended. The fact we don't all write in to complain about the "greed and nastiness" in The Apprentice means that actually we're not offended. If we were, we'd write in in our droves.

Whether the papers stirred up a fuss or not is largely irrelevant - let's face it, they stick their collective oar into plenty of random and far more odious things in order to generate paper sales. What is relevant is that once it was made public there was clearly a significant amount of the public who were offended by it (30,000 complaints is pretty impressive going).

I find it bizarre that people are defending this kind of mean-spirited harassment as "edgy" and "controversial"

FFS, why does so much of the comedy on our TV screens consist of peurile attacks on the softest targets around? What is edgy and controversial about constantly sucking up to the establishment the way Ross does? I hope they do fire him and give some quality young comedians a chance.

Actually, I have to add that if Brand and Ross and apologised properly and quickly I think this might have blown over by now. The fact that they didn't I think has made them look like they somehow think they are above petty rules and politeness and I think that is what has pissed people off even more.

Particularly given that we pay their fat BBC salaries. Or did, in Russel Brands case.

I think overpaid overgrown schoolboys are out of favour with a hard up public generally at the moment... as City boys are now finding.