Miss Anne Thrope

Once again fighting back against the bullies and the bigots is characterised as suppressing free speech. For most of my life these creeps have been able to get away with saying whatever they like without any serious comeback. Now that, finally, their views are no longer seen as respectable the cry goes up about free speech. Sorry, just because large numbers of people (or TV companies) are no longer willing to pay large amounts of money to hear bigotry being spouted does not mean free speech is being infringed in any way...

I hope that justice is done and JD is found guilty or innocent of this crime according to the evidence. However, I am not sorry to see such a deeply unpleasant individual go through this ordeal - as I said, not my most high-minded thought but a very human one...

Miss Anne Thrope

Stupid misogynistic provocation (there, I bit).

littlejimmy

Exactly. Freedom of Speech works more than one way.

Meow

Too many people seem to think that freedom of speech is simply licence to be nasty, racist, sexist and deliberately upset people. It isn't.

DXBDavie

Seals what? Again? Was this a general dig at HM Forces, Forces humour or JD's support of HM Forces?

DXBDavie

I have met JD, I have found his humour to be robust, but when talking to my wife she found him to be charming and polite, his partner at that time, also at our table, didn't look battered bruised or look like someone who would accept that treatment.

Whatever people's personal feelings are about JD, in fact people's feelings about anyone, please do not pre-judge them without at least meeting them.

Brains1983

I haven't met Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler or Cristiano Ronaldo, but I'm pretty all 3 are *****.

Meow

Miss Anne Thrope

I certainly will judge somebody who chooses to use the public platform that he somehow managed to occupy for many years to spew bigotry thinly disguised as humour. He might be a saint in private life but that doesn't matter one whit. His offences were committed in public. Even if he didn't believe a word of what he said (and if so, that may be worse in fact), the fact that he chose to say those things and that they are a matter of record is enough for me to judge him to be a piece of human trash.

In true bully fashion, he has consistently picked on people who were already disadvantaged in society and chose to put the boot in even more with a particularly nasty sneering vicious manner. Many of his "jokes" were nothing more than crude racist, homophobic and misogynist rants. No amount of personal charm or rectitude can compensate for that. And pointing out his bigotry is not compromising his free speech just forcing him to deal with the consequences of what he chooses to say, one of which is that I and many others will most certainly judge him to be a complete *********** (thanks to Scamp for this most useful and appropriate censor-resistant term).