Here’s a little story I’ve just found about Alistair Campbell. I have asteriskified certain words for the benefit of those of a nervous disposition.

Martin Rowson, political cartoonist and author, spoke at a humanist public debate on humour in 2007:

Martin began by talking about how eager people are to show that they have a good sense of humour, before introducing his distinctive account of how humour makes life possible.

“Four years ago I attended Michael Foot’s 90th birthday party at the Gay Hussar. I had just presented Foot with a cartoon as a birthday present and was standing in Greek Street with a photographer who wanted my contact details, which I proceeded to write down for him in my sketch book. As I was doing this Alistair Campbell, then still Blair’s Director of Communications, walked out of the restaurant and started shouting at me in the street. ‘F***ing typical,’ he yelled, startling several passers-by. ‘Martin f***ing Rowson signing f***ing autographs. What a w****r.’ When I protested that I was doing nothing of the kind, he shouted, ‘Of course you f***ing are, you f***ing pr**k,’ and carried on in this vein for a couple of minutes until he got bored and wandered off. Now, that may strike you as exactly the type of foul-mouthed bullying you would expect from Alistair Campbell but then I realised he was doing something else entirely. He was actually trying to be funny. He was using a sort of primitive humour to endear himself to me. He wanted me to think he had a sense of humour. And that kind of brutal joshing was the best he could come up with.

“The real point about humour is not that it makes us human, but that humour is an adaptation that helps us to cope with the pure awfulness of being human. We all understand from a very early age the inevitability of our own personal extinction. Without an ameliorating adaptation like humour we would all spend our entire lives screaming in existentialist terror. We laugh at everything: at each other, at each other’s misfortunes, at our leaders. We laugh at disaster and degradation, we laugh at the revolting mysteries central to our existence like sex and piss and s**t. When we laugh we release those lovely endorphins that make us feel better. It’s like booze and dope, another mood-altering high that makes our lives bearable.

But remember: when we cry we release almost identical hormones and it’s laughing and crying and all the other emotions that evolution has equipped us with that make us truly human.”

Points:

1. Alistair Campbell uses “a sort of primitive humour” which on this occasion consisted of a “kind of brutal joshing” which was “the best he could come up with.” What a team – him and Blair.

Campbell, remember, was Blair’s “Director of Communications”!

Primitive and brutal communicating a speciality.

2. No wonder “humanists” (and I mean the modern atheistic definition) are generally so tense and obnoxious when they can talk about “the pure awfulness of being human.”

One of the frightening things about humanists gaining more and more power is that they consider quality of life to be more important than life itself. What a recipe for legitimising eugenics.

3. It amazes me how many unique features we have “that make us truly human” and yet atheists still cannot see the wood for the trees. We were created that way. Clearly.