Most of the early posts here, including yours, were simply grave dancing. there have only been a handful which have thrown any light on the problem of racism and why it occurs.

My posts were not designed to throw any light on the problem of racism or why it occurs. My posts were to give the lie to the idea that Bernard Manning was Britain's greatest comedian - the title of this thread.

Everything else has stemmed from that. He was a racist but he gave money to charity. He was a racist but his timing was good. He was a racist but he wouldn't tell mother-in-law jokes. He was a racist but he wouldn't tell jokes about disabled kiddies. He was racist but he was creative. He was a racist but he made a living in front of really tough audiences. He was racist but he represented working-class thinking.

All I want people to do is stop making excuses for the man.

He was a racist (and all the other things, an insulting bully, homophobic, sexist etc).

Like Steve Shaw if that makes me PC (or as some might say "polite") I can live with that.