Quote Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone View Post
If I remember correctly almost all those Northern Club comedians owed their success to "-ism's" essentially thriving on a base of racism, homophobia and ***ism - plus a few mother in law jokes thrown in. I guess that was the northern working mens' clubs standard fodder back then. I cant say as I never went to any such establishment and I imagine that wghich was put out on ITV was likely a watered down version.

Alf, as you say, was a parody of the type of bigotry embodied in those northern working mens clubs.

But it makes me wonder. was it right wing bigotry back in the 70's since it seems to have its roots in an environment where, I would imagine, there was a predominantly labour voting audience: back when the core labour vote was the "working man", unlike now when it attracts a very different following. Its easy to assume bigotry is the domain of the right wing, but heres surely an example of core labour voter bigotry? or was it OK back then because it was said "in humour"? its perplexing
I think you may misremember, GP.
Alf was a reactionary, white working class Londoner who held racist, ***ist, anti Labour (or socialist), anti semitic, anti northern and ***ist views. Hence the phrases he used such as ‘scouse git’ and ‘layabout’ towards his left wing Liverpudlian son in law, ‘silly moo’ towards his wife, ‘them Jews’ as a description of Tottenham from a West Ham fan, along with numerous examples of racist terminology.
It was satirical and Alf’s prejudice and hypocrisy made him an object of ridicule. Sadly I suspect he might now be something of a folk hero to some these days.