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Basil Brush is being investigated after a complaint was made about an alleged racist joke in the puppet's BBC series.
A complaint was received by the police following a recent screening of an old episode that features the fox telling jokes about gypsies, reports Metro.
The episode, which was originally shown six years ago, features a sketch where a gypsy woman tries to sell Basil some wooden pegs.
A police spokesperson said: "We can confirm we have received a complaint about a TV show featuring Basil Brush from a member of the public in February. The complaint was logged as an incident of a racist nature."
Joseph Jones, a spokesperson for the Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, said: "Racist abuse of black people is quite rightly no longer deemed acceptable, but when a comedian makes a joke on TV about pikeys or gypos, there's no comeback."
Did you see the offending episode? Do you think Basil should be banished from our screens?
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What a joke !Boom ! Boom!
Posted by: balraj.sandhu1 on Mon Mar 17 01:28PM | Report abuseWhat a joke !Boom ! Boom!
Posted by: balraj.sandhu1 on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseWhat a joke !Boom ! Boom!
Posted by: balraj.sandhu1 on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseOther countries have real race riots and we have this?! I doubt that the remark was racist in any way more likely a badly written joke.....
Posted by: juanlucpicard on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuse00wo00wo
Posted by: bill.watson14 on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseNow I know that the lunatics really are running the asylum. Someone should tell these so-called pc idiots to "get a life".
Posted by: kjbertrand on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseThis is a total waste of time and resources, it is political correctness gone mad.
Posted by: margaretmcwilliam on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseOnce again, this comes up. You cannot be racist against gypsies, because they're (supposedly) human the same as the rest of us. We are all parts of the Human Race. You can be racist against horses, cows, birds etc. I do very much like the post below here which quite rightly points out that these travellers complained. Did they pay tax / TV licence / register their address? If so, they're not gypsies, they're fixed abode and therefore the joke was not even about them!! If we're not careful, the only jokes you'll be allowed to tell are along the lines of "A Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew walked into a bar. Nothing wrong with that..." - plagiarised shamelessly from somewhere, sorry if it was your work.
Posted by: joggern on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseOh for 'non specific religious entities' sake..... get a life.
Posted by: drwbaker2002 on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuseWHY ARE THE POLICE WASTING THEIR TIME ON THIS WHEN I CAN'T WALK DOWN THE STREET WITHOUT FEAR OF ATTACK, IT WASN'T LIKE THIS 10 YEARS AGO. IS IT ANY WONDER THE BNP IS DOING SO WELL AT THE MOMENT?! WAKE UP BRITAIN.
Posted by: thedoobster on Mon Mar 17 01:29PM | Report abuse