For an ideology which proudly pronounces its ethos of respect, compassion and inclusion, hyperliberalism can be decidedly judgmental and supercilious when it comes to appraising the past – and even that of living memory.

This irony can be witnessed in the attitude assumed by hyperliberalism’s advocates and adherents towards television comedies which first aired at the turn of the millennium. Only last month, a video showing the astonished and appalled reactions by members of Generation Z to Little Britain sketches went viral. That Noughties series, with its depiction of a man feigning disability, blackface and brownface characters, and overly camp and narcissistic Welshman, conspicuously jars with the safe and tepid comedy of today. The recent return of Ali G prompted a similar and predictable response, with a younger generation – and those of a certain older demographic caught in a state of leftist arrested development, and who still don’t get the joke – taking grievous offensive at the spectacle of this white, Jewish, half-Israeli actor pretending to be a dense black man.

Eleven sketches have been removed, including a blackface war re-enactment, a contestant in a burqa and a ‘tribe’ who inhabit a garden centre

Like Ali G’s creator Sacha Baron-Cohen, two other comedy actors, David Mitchell and Robert Webb, were prominent in the Noughties, first in Peep Show and then in That Mitchell and Webb Look. This was the series best-remembered today for its genius sketch featuring Mitchell as an SS officer who, struck by a moment of chilling self-awareness, asks: ‘Are we the baddies?’.

Unsurprisingly, both a younger generation and an older one who believe that censorship is fine as long as its meant well, have now cast their scornful and censorious judgement on this show.

To mark its twentieth anniversary this year, the BBC added to its iPlayer all four series of That Mitchell and Webb Look, but with several omissions. Eleven sketches have been removed, including a blackface war re-enactment, a contestant in a burqa and a ‘tribe’ who inhabit a garden centre.

In justifying the cuts, a BBC spokeswoman said: ‘This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t.’ The veteran comedian Dom Joly, star of another classic of that era, Trigger Happy TV, has described the removals as ‘classic BBC overkill’. Joly’s words are apt. The Corporation has form in exorcising its past content to conform with the ‘cancel culture’ mood inherent in hyperliberalism. In 2020, it removed Little Britain from its iPlayer after objections to its skits resurfaced.

One deletion from That Mitchell and Webb Look features the pair as English War Civil War re-enactors, bored of forever playing Roundheads and Cavaliers, who decide instead to black-up to recreate a conflict between government forces and a rebel militia in the Demographic Republic of Congo. Mitchell’s character asks: ‘Are you absolutely sure that this isn’t racist?’ They agree to carry on, but only on the condition that they stop at the first sign of racism. Only seconds later do they realise: ‘It’s racist. Very, very racist. Shame.’

Any intelligent person watching that sketch, twenty years ago or for the first time today, would intuit immediately that it conveys on behalf of its creators a deep awareness to racial prejudice. It tacitly acknowledges that even decent white liberals who pride themselves as such can unwittingly behave inconsiderately or crassly – just as Miriam Margolyes did earlier this month, when she called the black television presenter Andi Peters a ‘high yella’.

Yet one problem we’ve faced with hyperliberalism over the years is not merely its intolerance or fanaticism, but its literal-mindedness. It believes that some words, deeds or modes of behaviour are inherently off-limits, no matter what the context. This mindset dictates that ‘blacking-up’ is always bad, no stereotypes may ever appear in jest, and no taboo word ever be uttered. This mentality can’t abide television comedy even when it’s saying something nuanced, paradoxical and ironic, or actively raising awareness to discriminatory attitudes.

Little Britain’s boastful ‘only gay in the village’, played by a gay actor, was risible because he hadn’t realised that by the new millennium homophobia had lost its hold and most people didn’t care if others were gay or not. Ali G worked because he was an ignorant white youth who tried to gain street cred by assuming the form of a what he believed to be a typically black person, one who was dumb, crass and sexist. Thought-provoking nuance and ambivalence have been always been features of television comedy. Most people appreciated that they ought to be laughing at and not with Alf Garnett.

Alas, we live in illiberal times, one which doesn’t do subtlety or satire. And the easily-triggered and ban-happy types who run our institutions still don’t realise that it’s they who are the baddies.