Sharon Horgan’s "Mecca Suicide Bombers" Jibe on Have I Got News For You – Joke or Insult?

BBC’s Have I Got News For You is yet again at the centre of a potential Islamophobic row, when presenter Sharon Horgan made the jibe about “The Mecca of suicide bombers….is Mecca.”

Should Muslims turn the other cheek and accept it is a light hearted, off-the-cuff joke?

Or is it yet another example of a publicly funded body taking the blatant mick out of one of its most maligned and under-pressure communities?

I've actually been to a recording of the show, and all the presenter does is to READ off an autocue machine, so this “joke” was pre-written by the programme’s writers – all Horgan did was read it out.

Then again, the BBC loves a bit of moral midgetry - remember that old thing called 'free speech'?

Frankie Boyle certainly does, cracking a joke comparing Palestine to a cake being “punched to pieces by a very angry Jew” will get you rebuked.

Prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner-table test” and has become socially acceptable in the UK, even the Chairman of the Conservative party recognises this as a fact.

If we cannot accept bigotry in any shape of form, then why do Muslims have to learn to take a joke?