Why does Have I Got News For You barely criticize Starmer and endlessly take shots at the Tories as if they are still in power? LEO MCKINSTRY

How refreshing it would be if the BBC broadcast a comedy show mocking the twisted left-wing mentality that now dominates British public life.

He would be spoiled for choice in the range of targets – from the absurdity of our Border Force acting as a glorified ferry service for illegal cross-Channel migrants, to ministers secretly accepting free handouts from millionaires for new clothes, or Ed Miliband’s Net Zero program which could mean importing solar panels from China made by forced Uyghur labor and forcing British families to pay sky-high energy bills for the privilege.

Yet this kind of entertainment is absent from the airwaves.

Instead, too many so-called comedians behave like the guardians of progressive orthodoxy and constantly take pathetic shots at conservatives as if they are still in government.

Nothing highlights this more clearly than BBC One’s Have I Got News For You. Now in its 34th year, what was once a sharp and acidic program is dated and predictable. The Savage Spirit’s Flamethrower has been replaced by the Loudspeaker of Political Partisanship.

BBC One’s Have I Got News For You, now in its 34th year, is dated and predictable. (Pictured, from Have I Got News For You)

One of the invited panellists, former Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns (pictured), was subjected to a barrage of vilification which reduced her to near-silence.

Conversely, of course, today’s “comedians”, marinated in their anti-conservative prejudices, cannot stand attacks against the left. (Pictured, Boris Johnson)

After 14 years of smearing “cruel and evil” conservatives, producers and artists seem incapable of changing direction.

Last Friday’s offering was typical. Everyone knows that Labour’s first 100 days were riddled with scandal – even Sir Keir Starmer was forced to admit they had been “rocky”. Yet this rich store of material has barely appeared.

Instead, one of the invited panellists, former Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns, was subjected to a barrage of vilification that reduced her to near-silence.

Leading the charge was Ian Hislop, who, with increasingly puritanical conceit, established himself as one of the nation’s leading moralizers. Yet he is part of Britain’s privileged elite, promoting the gospel of political correctness while pocketing £20,000 per show. He has a seemingly neurotic obsession with Boris Johnson – someone who last held number 10 three prime ministers ago.

When Dame Andrea defended her former boss against Hislop calling him a “liar”, the studio audience groaned loudly, prompting him, understandably, to tell Hislop that the BBC had “selected” the audience that ‘she wished.

In fact, they constantly shouted and applauded every left-wing platitude uttered.

Conversely, of course, today’s “comedians”, marinated in their anti-conservative prejudices, cannot stand attacks against the left.

On a previous episode of Have I Got News For You, Hislop addressed the sleazy Starmer government in his most educational terms, saying simply: “It’s very disappointing.” The only reaction from the audience was to shift awkwardly in their seats.

The truth is that the health of the national political debate is best served when its premier satirical spectacle freely mocks the government of the day.

Everyone knows that Labour’s first 100 days were riddled with scandal – even Sir Keir Starmer was forced to admit they had been “rocky”.

This show also featured two left-wing panellists, journalist Helen Lewis and comedian Chloe Petts, whose predictable views formed an argument for scrapping the BBC’s compulsory license fee.

Elsewhere, social justice activists posing as “comedians” abound. BBC Radio Four’s News Quiz is another stalwart vehicle for anti-Tory hostility while Channel Four’s The Last Leg often degenerates into a left-wing hate-fest.

But the problem is particularly serious on Have I Got News For You because of its high visibility and large audience, with around 4.5 million viewers (compared to the 60,000 people who buy copies of the left-wing newspaper, the Guardian, weekdays).

The truth is that the health of the national political debate is best served when its first satirical broadcast freely mocks the government of the day without fear or favor, calls out the hypocrisy of MPs of all stripes and criticizes every fashionable ideology.

Instead, the British public is presented with a seemingly hideously mute spectacle because of their own prejudices.