"A derisory nine quips"

Did you read David Waywell's criticism of Have I Got News For You at the Spectator? 

He's exasperated at the programme for feeling like "an insular establishment talking among themselves".

Maybe that's true, but reading it I was somewhat taken aback by the following passage: 

On the night after David Cameron won the recent election, HIGNFY spent most of the show mocking Labour. Twenty-eight jokes were at Labour’s expense. Twenty-three were about the Lib Dems. Seven about UKIP. About the Conservatives, the party in power and surely the proper target for satire, a derisory nine quips.

A pro-Right HIGNFY? Really? That's never been my experience of it. Has it ever been yours?

Oh those stats!

Whatever. HIGNFY will be back tonight. I've rather given up watching recently, having been a devotee for most of its early history. Should I watch it tonight? 

Jeremy Clarkson is back presenting, apparently being mercilessly mocked by Messrs Merton and Hislop. Paul will apparently pretend to be punched by JezWeCanOnAmazon. (I've got bandages ready in advance lest my sides split).

And according to the Mail, Ian Hislop will make the following joke, linking Messrs Clarkson and Corbyn:

A man called Jeremy who has extreme views and won’t be in a job for long.

To which the only response is: Oh my God, The Daily Mail! Total Nazis! Is it a dolphin in a bathtub? 

(And 'Uncomfortable Journalist' Camilla Long is back too. So, Camilla, is it a dolphin in a a bathtub?)


.....Oh and while I'm making up my mind about whether to watch it the zombie-like revival of Open All Hours in on (with the sound turned off). A Chuckle Brother is talking to G...g...g...Granville.

No, really.

UPDATE....live blogging. 

There's a very funny opening visual joke about Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell failing to mount an escalator. The audience laughs.

Then Richard Osman of BBC's Pointless says a few nice things about "refreshing" Jeremy Corbyn. The BBC audience gives him rapturous applause.

Nigel Farage is mocked. The audience laughs and applauds. Ian jokes about him coming back from the dead.

Did Ian engage in relations with a pig at Oxford? He denies it (surprisingly seriously). It seems his own past has been questioned by the wicked media this week. He mocks Tory non-dom donor Lord Ashcroft - and the media for taking his allegations about Piggate  seriously. He says the bedroom tax is more important. That's what David Cameron should be blamed for, he says (somewhat randomly). The BBC audience whoops.

Ooh, a saucy scripted joke about Jeremy Corbyn wanting the bring the fizz back into politics involving Jez's relations with Diane Abbott!

I've not seen Paul in a while. His neck has grown surprisingly wide these days.

The punching jokes turn out to be very mild. Jeremy Clarkson appears perfectly relaxed. Ian praises him for punching Piers Morgan. A joke is made against Jeremy Corbyn instead. The audience laughs politely.

Robert Peston is laughed at. (Poor Robert!)

Did Richard Osman mock Paul Merton by quipping "a hatstand in a bandstand"? ("a dolphin in a bathtub?"). Paul didn't smile.

I'm astonished, having read all the build-up, just how easy things turned out for Jeremy Clarkson. I feel I've been hugely misled. What happened to the "extreme views" joke linking him to Jeremy Corbyn?

I laughed a few times. Not often.