DURHAM MP Mary Kelly Foy has waded into the debate about Jimmy Carr’s “abhorrent” joke about the deaths of gypsies at the hands of the Nazis.

Little wonder. It is abhorrent. It isn’t a joke. It gets a reaction due to its shock value, saying that the killing of thousands of gypsies was a positive. It is a bully’s statement, picking on a soft target – there would have been a bigger reaction if he had used Jewish people or black people as his butt.

Like Ms Foy, we wonder why Netflix broadcast it – what sort of judgement thought that a cruel statement about the deaths of up to 500,000 people was something the broadcaster wanted to be allied with?

However, we don’t doubt that some forms of comedy need to be cutting edge and risky, both to gain laughs and also to make us look at the world in a different way. We also don’t doubt that Carr had the right to express himself, and it would be wrong for us or for politicians to tell anyone what they may laugh at. Cancel culture is a dangerous culture.

Equally, though, people have a right to be offended, and those people must be reassured by the volume of disgust that has been poured on this joke – even Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who is no shrinking violent, is outraged by it. So perhaps some good has come out of the outrage caused by Carr: a vast majority of people are now prepared to stand up for the gypsy community in a way they haven’t been in the past.