This morning Charlotte Church apologised on behalf of the People’s Assembly to a reporter who was spat at by protesters outside Tory conference in Manchester. The classical-singer-turned-activist says that she will pen an open letter explaining that this is not representative of what the People’s Assembly protests are about.
However, she may want to save space in the letter for an extra paragraph or two covering last night’s People’s Assembly comedy night, titled ‘laugh them out of town’. Frankie Boyle, Sara Pascoe, Robin Ince and Francesca Martinez joined forces at the Manchester Academy for a night of ‘jokes’ at the expense of the Tories.
The very mention of Jeremy Corbyn at the beginning of the show from one campaigner received a large cheer as they celebrated Corbyn — who is taking part in a People’s Assembly event today — being elected as Labour leader. However, while they were up to date with regards to the Labour party, the host comedian struggled to remember which party was in government, blasting the coalition before — after correcting herself — concluding ‘they’re all the same aren’t they, they’re all a bunch of c—s all melted into one.’
Robin Ince, the BBC radio presenter and comedian, then suggested that everyone was making too big a deal out of yesterday’s spitting incident:
‘This f—ing march, I accidentally went on social media because it turns out some people on that are c—s, right. So people are going “the march, have you seen about the march, the violent march? They were spitting,” they could at least burn down a f—ing postbox.
Now childhood poverty, the NHS… oh no it doesn’t matter, they were spitting? F— the poverty! F— the death! The march was unmannerly!
I’m not pro-spitting, I don’t think it’s a good thing, but I dont think it means everything else is refuted.’
Meanwhile, the comedian Francesca Martinez — who has cerebral palsy but prefers to describe herself as wobbly — discussed abortion and disability, conceding that there were extreme circumstances where she would consider it e.g. the presence of the Tory gene:
‘Most couples in Britain still choose to have an abortion if they find out their baby will be disabled. It really is quite severe.
I’m not judgmental or angry: I do get it, it’s a complex issue, no-one wants an unhealthy baby and there are times that I may consider it if I’m honest, like I can imagine sitting at the doctors being told “I’m really sorry but your baby boy does carry a defective gene and he will be a Tory politician”.
Oh God, are you sure? “Yes he’s got the privitisation gene, the cutting benefits gene and the f—ing c— gene.” How do you know he won’t be a Liberal Democrat, they are very close genetically? “The thing is your baby boy is also missing a conscience”‘
It then fell on the bastion of good taste Frankie Boyle to continue the job, launching into some gags about children and the House of Commons.
A new kind of politics maybe, but it’s certainly not a kind one.
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