Mark Drakeford condemns ‘abhorrent’ Jimmy Carr joke as he prepares to perform in Cardiff
The First Minister has condemned as “abhorrent” a joke made by Jimmy Carr as the comedian prepares to perform in Cardiff next Monday.
On his Netflix special His Dark Material on Christmas Day, Jimmy Carr had said that no one mentioned the “thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis” because “no one wants to talk about the positives”.
Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price asked Mark Drakeford in the Senedd to call of Cardiff Council to cancel the performance.
“While the spectre of fascism is stalking Europe again, the comedian Jimmy Carr is still refusing to apologise for implying that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Gypsies at the hands of the Nazis was somehow something to be celebrated,” Adam Price said.
“Next Monday, he is performing in our capital city at St David’s Hall. Welsh Gypsies are asking the venue to cancel the performance in solidarity with them. St David’s Hall is owned and managed by Cardiff Council and subsidised by the Arts Council of Wales, which the Welsh Government funds.
“As First Minister, and indeed as leader of the Labour Party in Wales, will you ask the Labour leadership of Cardiff Council to agree to the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities’ entirely reasonable demand, in the circumstances, that no publicly funded venue should be a platform for an unrepentant purveyor of racist tropes?
“If they refuse to do so, will you ask the arts council to urgently review the terms of its funding?”
Mark Drakeford replied that it “wasn’t as easy” as Cardiff Council cancelling the performance.
“The views attributed to the individual are absolutely unacceptable and would be condemned by anybody, I think, in this Chamber,” Mark Drakeford said.
“We spoke only last week about our concerns for Gypsy/Traveller communities, and we discussed those at some length in the policing board for Wales, which my colleague Jane Hutt and I attended.
“If it were as simple as issuing an edict and putting things right, then of course we would be able to do that, but I know from what I have heard from Cardiff Council that it simply isn’t as easy as that.
“The views expressed are abhorrent to my colleagues in Cardiff Council, as they are to all of us here, and I’m sure that those sentiments will be powerfully conveyed.”
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Nothing wrong with the joke. To be offended by it, is to understand the stereotype it used for comedy. Change the stereotype, then the joke can’t be made. Carr is renkund for pushing the limits and often highlighting the absurd.
Phil: So, you condone replacing gypsies with Jews, and to you (Phil) it is just a joke,
There nothing funny about genocide
Doesn’t change the fact it was only a joke though.
Where was the joke?
It was all a joke, Laurence. The fact that you didn’t find it funny (along with many, including myself) or even understand it doesn’t change that.
It’s either all ok, or none of it is.
Still not something to joke about
“To be offended by it, is to understand the stereotype it used for comedy.” The problem here is that you’ve confused the existence of a stereotype with the existence of comedy. Carr perpetuates a stereotype and assumes the audience will find the stereotype itself funny rather than offensive. So have you, it seems. If Carr wanted to use the recognition of the stereotype to draw attention to the injustice of its existence, he could have done so with humour. But that is not what he did. He basically just said “hey isn’t it hilarious that everyone hates gypsies!” Replication is… Read more »
I have tried to rationalize the “joke” as simply a stupid lapse of taste and judgment. But I can’t. To try to use the Roma genocide as a basis for generating laughs is truly abhorrent. And Carr’s failure to acknowledge this subsequently compounds the offence. Carr is beyond contempt.
His “jokes” are as funny as his tax dodging,
Yep thats right – neither worked 😅
👏👏 now, that’s funny!
Kick him out of wales idiot
Kick all English comedians out of Wales. Welsh comedy for Welsh comedians
you may find that despite the English image he is indeed Irish – despite not using his two Irish middle names……
Born and brought up in London according to Wikipedia so I guess that would make him English.
I have two cousins who were both born in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 and Cape Town…..where their parents had moved to at their birth time.
They would be very amused to hear they are both Chinese and 🇿🇦 South African 😂😂😂
Indeed Manchesters David Lloyd George and Dafydd Wigley might also want a chat 💬 with you as would the very recently passed Dai Jones of S4C – another London lad,
I did not say he was English, I said I guess. It would be for him to decide what his identity is, the same for your cousins and everyone of US. Anyway, none of that has anything to do with making jokes about genocide.
RIP Ryan Davies…
Lol I got this joke even if nobody else did
If Mr Carr and anyone else on here thinks it’s a joke, then tell it in the camp on Rover Way in Cardiff, if they agree then all good, if not at least the Heath is around the corner.
So controversial jokes now need a referendum to qualify as a joke?!
Yikes 😬
There’s a difference between genuine Romani folk and Irish tinkers
Carr has never been funny. Probably this is his last throw of the dice. Sadly there will be an audience cued to laugh.
There is nothing funny about genocide, Jimmy Carr should be ashamed of himself
Firstly it is a Joke, said by a comedian, not a politician with a political policy. I did not find the joke funny, but it did draw attention to some groups being untouchable, others less so. I think the Joke was more about modern day prejudices.
To stop someone performing just because you do not agree with them, now that would be Fascism. Cancel Culture is the Cancer, not Jokes that do not pass the woke and political correctness test..
Sounds like he had read the room and this is the mentality of his fan base as they all applauded…pleased to hear that Mr Drakeford is speaking up in the right place for the travellers of Wales…
Yeah, the fans, sittin’ on the sofa, beer cans in hand……………………
But, another thing, are ” travellers” Roma?
Jesus… That was a joke??? Genocide is funny? The current discrimination these groups face is alive and well and given a stage to normalise it; for people to embrace, agree with, and laugh along. If you are here defending this “joke” you are telling on yourself. Imagine if he said all Welsh people being targeted to be wiped out was a positive. Imagine you never met some of your family because they were. That your grandparents had lost siblings, parents, friends, had to flee their home, country, community and you still live with a backdrop of constant, blatant discrimination to… Read more »
I’ve never really found tax avoiding Jimmy Carr funny. And when he laughs to me sounds like horny Walrus on the pull. I suppose ones who struggle to get laughs resort to extreme material as shock value. Personally, I’d shut the unfunny git up during his performance by lobbing a Mackerel his way to keep him quiet.
Firstly dark humour is not really my for me I find a lot of it more cringe than funny. But each to our own as a joke for me never found it funny. Now he is a comedian doing a comedy show and has come out with this joke and that is the important part here it was told as a joke and many in the audience found it funny. I would be angry if he had said this as a statement and said this was his opinion of gypsies but it was said at a show labelled as his… Read more »