Why are so many comedians left wing? It’s quite simple, really

The demise of long-running BBC comedy panel show Mock the Week has provoked a peculiar amount of crowing on the right of UK politics this week.

The programme, hosted by Dara Ó Briain for the last 17 years, was being ditched because it had driven audiences away by being too left wing, too “woke” and too anti-Brexit, we were told.

One columnist in The Spectator even suggested it was diversity directives that had sealed the show’s fate, by forcing it to include more female comedians, who apparently aren’t as funny as men in this combative format. Viewers who have watched the likes of Angela Barnes, Sophie Duker and Kerry Godliman more than holding their own against the boys may find this proposition questionable.

And of course the old refrain was wheeled out once more: “Why are all the comedians on the TV left wing? Why are they keeping the right-wing comedians off our screens?” It’s a challenge which has always puzzled me. You might as well ask: “Why are all the property shows on TV so right wing?”

In a country where growing numbers of young people can’t buy a home, and where more and more families are crammed into substandard accommodation or precarious and costly private sector rentals, why is it that so much TV coverage focuses on the middle-class dream of making money by doing up your house and selling it on, rather than, say, the need for more social housing?

Could it be that people who enjoy poking fun at the establishment and pointing out the ludicrous lies our politicians foist on us are more likely to become stand-up comedians? And that those with a greater interest in investing in property will gravitate towards property shows?

And anyway, regular viewers – 1.4 million of whom were still tuning in during the latest series of Mock the Week – will know that it’s not a particularly political show, with panellists more concerned about punchlines than ideology.

But the glee with which its cancellation was greeted forms part of a narrative which has proved extremely valuable to the right in recent years, in which the wealthy, well-connected and powerful portray themselves as the victims of a dominant liberal elite, who are apparently running the country by stealth.

You can see it in Liz Truss and Suella Braverman’s assaults on diversity training, portraying efforts to make the workplace more welcoming for Black or disabled or gay people as “witch trials” to which the majority are being unjustly subjected.

And you can see it in the way that the word “woke” has been hijacked and turned into an all-purpose slight to belittle anyone calling for greater equality – otherwise, of course, known as a “snowflake” if they complain about the state of things.

Maybe those are the sorts of things the fabled right-wing comedians could joke about once they’re unleashed on our screens. In the trade, I believe it’s known as “punching down” – getting your humour out of mocking those less powerful than yourself.

You can see why that would appeal to those in the establishment who would rather not have impertinent jesters punching upwards at them.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor