Barry Pepper

What’s disgusting? Laughing? Laughing at the absurdity and utter cruelty of the left? Laughing at someone invoking his father’s tragic death for political point-scoring? Laughing at the sheer audacity of using the incredibly sad loss of a loved one to justify policies that could harm millions of pensioners? Dark humour is a long-held British tradition, a way of making sense of tragedy, absurdity, arrogance and political destruction. Laughter is one of the most powerful and instinctive human reactions we have. It kills fear, defuses aggression and punctures ideology. So yes, I will laugh. I’ll laugh when I want, how I want and at whatever I want, because laughter is infinitely better than hatred, rage or fear. Your attempted pile-on failed, but in doing so it exposed everything I detest about progressive politics. Both Mike and I have lost close family members to the same disease. That neither diminishes our right to respond as we choose, nor gives you, Dan, or anyone else ideologically opposed to us the right to sit in judgement over how we do so. Your X post was quoted in a threat made against me and my family this afternoon. You are not responsible for that threat — but if I applied the same standard of responsibility that you appear to apply to others, you certainly would be.