Libby Purves criticises BBC for erasing offensive jokes out of old shows

Former Radio 4 presenter has been a frequent critic of ‘cancel culture’

Libby Purves has slammed the BBC for editing old shows to remove offensive jokes.

The former BBC Radio 4 presenter argued that the jokes should be kept in to show how far society has come.

Writing in the Radio Times, she said: “It’s actually refreshing to be made to cringe: it shows how far we have come, and makes anyone thoughtful wonder which current expressions will shock our grandchildren.”

The BBC have been re-editing old radio shows such as Steptoe and Son and Dad’s Army to remove insensitive jokes regarding race, gender and sexuality.

One such joke removed from Dad’s Army included a reference to Chinese people as “yellow friends”.

Purves added that although she thought the BBC’s move was well-intentioned, she found it to be misguided.

She wrote: “Why dishonestly take a smoothing iron to old jokes, gentrify the crumbly old edifices that sheltered generations from the dull hardness of life? Why would a world that anxiously preserves the jejune wall-scrawls of Banksy be so cavalier with its grandparents’ record? It can’t affect us now.”

(ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH)

Purves – who presented the radio show Midweek for more than 30 years before it ended in 2017 – also said that terms used today will become outdated in the future.

“I think the insulting catch-all ‘BAME’ will, for instance; as will our mad readiness to throw ‘racist’ as an insult where it isn’t deserved,” she said.

Since leaving the BBC in 2017, Purves has been a frequent critic of the organisation and of so-called “cancel culture”.

She previously compared “woke censorship” to Mary Whitehouse, the conservative activist who campaigned against social change in Britain throughout the 1960s and 1970s.