Brendan O'Neill joins in:
So, let me get this right: at the Edinburgh Fringe, comedians who make jokes about killing and raping women are welcome, but comedians who defend women’s rights are not?
How else are we to explain the surreal situation where Frankie Boyle, notorious cracker of misogynistic gags, is having the red carpet rolled out for him at the Fringe, while Graham Linehan, whose chief thoughtcrime is to understand what a woman is, has just been ruthlessly cancelled by one of the Fringe venues? …
The Leith Arches’s (now deleted) announcement of its McCarthyite intentions was written in a fittingly infantile style. ‘We DO NOT support this comedian’, their statement wailed. ‘He WILL NOT be allowed to perform’, said their furious edict clearly written by someone who loves the caps lock. Then came the killer line: the Comedy Unleashed show is ‘CANCELLED… with immediate effect’.
It is such a craven statement. Bombarded with complaints by trans activists, those modern Mary Whitehouses who are hell-bent on extinguishing culture that slights their fragile souls, the Leith Arches was essentially pleading: ‘Please don’t come for us! We beg forgiveness for our moral error!’
When surrounded by a mob demanding the metaphorical scalp of some man or woman who has dared to utter a blasphemous thought, we have a choice. We can either stand firm and say, ‘No, we will not silence this person just because he offended you’. Or we can say, ‘Take him, do what you will with him, but please leave me alone’.
Courage or cowardice – that’s the fork in the road when the mob’s after you. And the Leith Arches opted for the latter. It opted to save its bacon rather than stand up for artistic freedom. Surely no self-respecting comedian will agree to perform at this venue that so timidly does the bidding of liberty’s enemies.
What’s more, what a blow the Arches’s authoritarian decree must have been to those who say cancel culture is a myth; to those censorship denialists who watch as women are hounded off university campuses, sacked from their jobs and threatened with rape and death just for saying ‘men are not women’, and who snivellingly respond: ‘That’s not censorship. It’s just the consequences of their actions. Suck it up, ladies.’
Some good news though: it looks like a new venue has been found.
We have found a venue for tomorrows gig!
The show goes on!
(ticket holders will be emailed with the new address tomorrow afternoon) pic.twitter.com/cxzLJ1gUmM— Comedy Unleashed (@UnleashedComedy) August 16, 2023
Mick Hartley 
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