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Ahem.

Daily Mail, 12/09/2006:
The death of British humour
by Leo McKinstry
Killed off by the forces of political correctness and bureaucrats who are beyond parody…

The famous British sense of humour has long been our most cherished national characteristic… But, sadly, there are signs that the great British sense of humour is no longer what it once was. The eagerness for laughs seems to be receding, increasingly replaced by a mixture of priggishness and grievance…

The real thorn in all this is the influence of political correctness. The ruthlessly enforced official dogma of multi-cultural-ism, with its emphasis on social divisions, means that we no longer have a sense of shared values in Britain. And without that collective norm, we cannot all laugh at the same things…

Comedians and writers, who quite happily poke fun at Christianity, dare not utter a squeak against Islam – though I suspect that the great decent Muslim majority are relaxed about such humour.

I was told a joke the other day, in which a female Islamic terrorist in a burka asks a friend: “Does my bomb look big in this?”

Hilarious, but is it permissible to say such a line in cringing modern Britain? Perhaps not.

Well, I think you just did, but point taken. Who can these humourless rascals be?

Daily Mail, 11/09/2006:
BBC staff in bad-taste Middle East spoof
The BBC has come under fire for allowing its senior journalists to make a spoof video which makes fun of war in the Middle East…

…It also contains crass Arab stereotypes and makes joking reference to Osama Bin Laden, the PaIestinian conflict.

The video has been condemned by an Arab rights group as ‘insenstive and puerile’, as well as being potentially offensive to Muslims…

…Conservative MP Nigel Evans, a member of the Commons Media Select Committee, said: “We just had the largest number of deaths over the shortest period of time in Iraq and Afganistan.

“Despite the fact that this video was meant as a joke, this is one of those things we can say is certainly no laughing matter.

“For these people to make light of the conflict is in the worst taste – they can’t have thought it through at all.”

Oh.