Kmflett's Blog

In Defence of Steve Bell’s cartoons

Steve Bell was sacked recently by the Guardian after a cartoon depicting Benjamin Netanyahu was at least implied to be anti-Semitic. There was an alleged reference to the Merchant of Venice and a pound of flesh. It was of course nothing of the sort as was clear if one actually looked at the cartoon (it can be found on Steve Bell’s site @bellbelltoons).

I had a twitter exchange with Steve Bell to this effect and of course received a schooling by Xers on the Merchant of Venice. None seemed to have actually looked at the cartoon. It was course a pile on.

Writing in the Spectator Fraser Nelson defended Steve Bell by pointed out that as papers become increasingly digitally focused- as the Guardian has- the ability of those who take offence to do so has increased.

Alan Rusbridger who edited the Guardian for a long while when Bell was drawing cartoons of the paper has pondered whether the right to offend is now diminished.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/63597/alan-rusbridger-can-political-cartoons-survive-steve-bell

I think Steve Bell has made a significant contribution to modern British social history. His cartoons of Thatcher, Cameron, Major and Blair did a good deal to shape their public image whether they liked it or not

I’m not an enthusiast for the right to offend however. Hard right Tory politicians like Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson regularly exercise what they regard as their right to offend the poor and dispossesed. Rather and I think here Bell stands in the classical tradition of political cartooning in a democracy there is or should be a right to criticise and annoy the rich and powerful and perhaps particularly authoritarian politicians like, in the current case,Benjamin Netanyahu