Jeremy Hardy

Political and polemical do not always a great comedian make, but Jeremy Hardy keeps his revolutionary fist in an amusingly silky glove for Radio 4. This series of comic lectures - in which he is joined for mock interviews by guests such as Alison Steadman, Rebecca Front and, as is the case here, Gordon Kennedy - started back in 1993. Subjects covered down the years have helped the nation grow to the fulsome state of cultural, intellectual and spiritual awareness that we are blessed with today. None of this would have happened if Jeremy Hardy had not lectured us upon How to Argue Your Position, How to Improve Your Mind and the seminal How to Have Sex. Why was this man not in the Queen's Birthday Honours? Oh, yes. He's a socialist.

What I see in the mirror: Jeremy Hardy

Ageing suits me because I was born old, like Spencer Tracy or Dolly the Sheep.

Though The News Quiz is one of Radio 4's most loved programmes, it's hard for me to write about. It goes out on a Friday night, after my column deadline, and - obviously - it's topical. I can only review the previous show, in this case the first in the new series, which discussed the Labour party conference, the EDF energy company and Sarah Palin. See: they're so last week! (Apart from Sarah Palin.)

The other block to me reviewing The News Quiz is, well, me. Though I am a Radio 4 devotee, its panel shows drive me mad. They're so cosy! The combination of laugh-at-anything audience and aren't-I-clever contestants creates a tittering dinner party atmosphere that makes me yearn for Jerry Sadowitz or Keith Allen or Joan Rivers. In short, I want anger.

Still, there's enough of that in today's Britain, eh? And anyway, The News Quiz has Jeremy Hardy, whose anger is there, just clothed in exquisite one-liners, and he usually keeps me listening. Hardy has a gentle bedside manner which hides his vicious shanking of the pompous establishment. Last Friday he managed to stick it to middle-class parents, banks, the government and Barack Obama within the first 10 minutes. 'Obama said that the collapse of the banks is no time for politics. No, Christmas dinner is no time for politics.' But the bit I really liked was when he had a pop at Sue Perkins over her appearance on Maestro. What that says about me, I hate to think.

It is a sad fact of life that many people will not listen to Jeremy Hardy because they think that he is a smug, middle-class Trot. Actually, he is an astute social commentator as well, as this exposition on the politeness of Britons, and what men really mean when they say what they say, shows.

Radio Head: Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation

Rowland Rivron, Sandi Toksvig, Mark Steel, Mark Thomas, Jo Brand, Graham Fellowes, Russell Brand . . . the list of modern comedians that divides the nation is a surprisingly lengthy one. And it will be only part of the listening public that will be rearranging its life to be in front of the wireless when the latest series of the sociopolitical lecture Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation kicks off next Tuesday (Radio 4, 6.30pm).

Ofcom dismissed 70 complaints about a programme on BBC Radio 4 in which comic Jeremy Hardy said members of the BNP should be "shot in the back of the head".

The BBC apologised for the comments in the satirical show, Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, saying they were not acceptable, and Ofcom said it would not take any action.

Town cancels comic's show over BNP joke

Burnley council has cancelled a performance by the comedian Jeremy Hardy after he said members and supporters of the BNP should be shot in the head.

The problem about being an angry young man - or, indeed, woman - used to be knowing when you are not so young any more. But series such as television's Grumpy Old Men show that it is OK to stay angry, like John Osborne, well into middle age. Back with more polemical lectures, Jeremy Hardy has decided, aged 43, to live each day as if it is his last. For him that means lying half-awake in bed all day. You may not share Hardy's world view, but his knack of being cosy and confrontational ("Kids should never be fashion slaves, especially in the Far East") usually keeps him a step ahead of one's expectations.