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

The glee with which the ‘Mock the Week’ cancellation was greeted forms part of a narrative that has proved extremely valuable to the right in recent years, writes Andrew Woodcock

Regular viewers, 1.4 million of whom were still tuning in during the latest series of ‘Mock the Week’, will know it’s not a particularly political show (BBC)

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.