Political satire? Is there any at all on TV?

A lot of the (younger) people I used to work with were very sniffy about my Radio 4 habit, until I pointed out that Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen and Dead Ringers all started life on Radio 4.

JessM I do agree about the current dearth of political satire as such, there are of course the constant repeats of Have I got News For You, and Mock The Week, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of "current" stuff.

Oh there is them I suppose. But how bored am i with Hislop and Merton? and what's funny about hearing them saying the same kind of thing about last year's news?
Bit of a boys club going on. Boring programming - mix and match with a little in-group. Steven Fry and that un funny Alan man who used to be on the Abbey National ads.
Does the beeb give lifetime contracts to some of these people? Bruce F? Ross?

Jess the "Now show" and the "News Quiz" are brilliant.
I prefer them on the radio. (In "Have I got news for you". On TV they seem to spend a lot of time pulling silly faces and clowning to the camera. With radio you just have to make sure the words work really well and it all hangs on having really brilliant writing.

Mind you I am so addicted used to Radio (4) listening that nothing else compares.

Most of the 6:30pm comedy slots on Radio 4 are brilliant, apart from Count Arthur Strong.

That Radio 4 6.30pm slot is a funny thing - it is either totally brilliant or complete rubbish! No middle way it seems.

I am a life time -wireless-radio fan. 6.30 is usually a good time but am fed up with Just a Minute. We do need some sharp comedy on the TV, even getting fed up with Miranda and find I prefer her as a midwife.

We need to laugh at our politicians.....or we may cry the way things are going.

Agreed all last 3 posts. Quiz format on TV is not really satire is it. Just being witty about the news. Satire does require that someone has developed a clever script

I remember seeing Rory Bremner complain that the current crop of politicians are so anodyne that it is impossible to satirise them.
They have all had so much media training that they are able to present a uniformly boring facade.

Gove? Johnson? Huhne? Mitchell? Not to mention Dave and Georgie boy.
Maybe he said this a while back.
Suspect that satire works out as more expensive (team of writers and a team of presenters) and a bit more risky in these litigious times.
But it is a poor show when there is none of this on TV.
It was Tom Lehrer wasn't it that gave up satire when the nobel peace prize was given to Kissinger. Life out-satires satire.

Jess Yes it was some time ago. but with the exception of Boris, none of the politicians you mention are as easy to poke fun at as say, Mrs Thatcher, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Norman Tebbitt,even Blair and Brown......they all seem bland and colourless.

They couldn't really do much with Obama, could they? Remember 'The President's Brain is Missing?'

I am so bored stiff with what now passes for satire on radio and TV. It seems to consist of nothing but left inclined-comedians making personal attacks on the conservatives and anyone with religious beliefs. I could bear it if they were witty and clever but they aren't.

No, I am not a conservative supporter, or of any party to the right of them, my politics are probably not much different to the comedians I am listening to, but when has a constant stream of personal invective been funny?

Back in the 1960s I was a fan of That Was the Week That Was. Devid Frost et al, were vitriolic and venomous when they described the parties then in power, but they were clever and witty and didn't confuse being insulting with being funny.

DD worked for the BBC until a few years ago and she said that when she was there nobody working there would dare admit to voting conservative or having any religious beliefs. She loved her job but was glad to leave the organisation and is highly critical of it.

If you have ComedyCentral, then The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is worth a watch...

Is that American or Uk feetlebaum?
Just reading this re the ex chief whip:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21985955

You could do a brilliant spitting image type sketch couldn't you of AM, red in the face, in his Eton uniform, having a tantrum and saying:
It's NOT FFFFing FAIR. I never fffing swore at the fffing rozzer. I never fffing did. And anyway he was being fffing cheeky to me the little pl**

Sigh. Anyone for a bit of GN political satire?

flickety Which ever party is in government gets the stick and long may it continue. Political satire; that is having a go at policies and attitudes of the politician themselves; is the sign of healthy democracy.

All politicians should be challenged about their actions and policies at every opportunity so they can explain and try to justify their reasons.

Nellie I have no problem with political satire, and I believe, like you, that it is a sign of a healthy democracy and of course politicians should be challenged and often comedians do that better than anyone, but what we are getting from comedians in Britain today is not political satire and it is not holding politicians to account it is just a stream of personal invective targeted at individuals. It is not funny, it is not political, it is not satirical and it is oh so boring.

Jon Stewart in the USA is funny, political and satirical, he takes a scalpel to the US body politic and fillets it. This is why he is such compulsive viewing.

We are desperately in need of British Jon Stewart who will not let his own political views colour his satire and who will direct his satire equally at all political parties, not just those he doesn't support.

I agree - and need the news media to give such a person (or group of people) a platform. A new generation, not the sinking-comfortably-into-middle age Hislop etc.
Any other ideas for sketches you would like to see folks? The Chris Huhne in prison sketch maybe? Chris Huhne (aged 53 and a half) the Prison Diaries.
Or the David Milligan goes off to run Thunderbirds International Rescue - Gods gift to a satirist surely?
Or the one where Dave tried to persuade Sammy that he really really needed the family seaside holiday photos even though she was 8 months pregnant and would SO rather just go to Chequers.
(BTW you can walk across the grounds of Chequers, we discovered, one day, when walking in the Chilterns and wondering why we were getting that you are under surveillance feeling. It was all the cameras that did it - Oh bloody 'ell, that big house must be Chequers!! But they have diverted the footpath away from the front of the house and near to the gates. If you really want to you can walk all the way to the pub where they left their daughter - another great idea for a sketch)