Palestine joke a 'serious breach' of standards

The BBC has apologised for a Frankie Boyle joke in which he compared Palestine with a cake being ‘punched to pieces by a very angry Jew’.

A listener complained that his gag on the Radio 4 comedy show Political Animal was ‘disgusting’ and ‘anti-Semitic’.

After being dissatisfied with the initial response to their complaint, the listener then went through the corporation’s editorial complaints unit.

It admitted that the use of the word Jew in the context was ‘inappropriate and offensive’ and said that BBC bosses would scrutinize the show more closely in future.

But that was not enough for the listener, who was unhappy that the remark had gone through the editorial process ‘without ringing any alarm bells’  – so complained to the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee, the corporation’s final arbiter on taste and deceny.

Now, 22 months after Boyle’s joke initially aired, the committee said it endorsed the finding about the use of the word ‘Jew’.

It said: ‘As a result, the committee wished to apologise to the complainant on behalf of the BBC for any offence the remark may have caused him and other listeners to the programme.’

However, no further action will be taken after the committee ruled ‘that the breach, while serious, did not require an apology or correction from the BBC online or on air’.

On the show, made by independent production company Avalon, Boyle said: ‘I'm quite interested in the Middle East, I'm actually studying that Israeli army martial arts. And I know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.

‘It's a difficult question to understand. I've got an analogy which explains the whole thing quite well: If you imagine that Palestine is a cake: well, that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’

rnIt is the latest in a line of comments that have landed Boyle in hot water. Last year, he was rapped for comments he made about Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington on Mock The Week, while last month he mother of a child with Down's syndrome criticised him for making fun of people with the condition during a gig in Reading.

Published: 28 Apr 2010