Have I Got News For You comedian Fin Taylor blasted for 'disgusting' bomb Glastonbury joke

Comedian Fin Taylor is facing a Twitter backlash after he made a “disgusting” joke about bombing Glastonbury Festival during an appearance on Have I Got News For You.

Taylor’s made the joke, which inferred people who attend the music event are supporters of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, while appearing on the BBC’s long-running panel show on Friday (20 November).

He started by comparing Corbyn’s followers to fans of music legend Bob Dylan, saying they shared a certain “dogmatic” approach.

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During a round discussing Corbyn being readmitted to the Labour Party, Taylor said: “My relationship with Corbyn is like Bob Dylan, in that I only hate him so much because of his fans.

“People think he is the greatest musician who ever lived but you listen to him and he’s awful. He’s a poet or whatever but he has a sinus infection clearly - its not nice to listen to.

“But then people are so dogmatic and say he's the greatest musician. It's terrible.

“But people who like Corbyn, it's like 200,000 people in the Labour Party that are fanatics? So all you've got to do next year, bomb Glastonbury, hopefully Dylan's headlining. Two birds one stone.”

A shocked Ian Hislop, sat next to Taylor, quipped: “Well, that’s the end of your career.”

To which Taylor responded: “My week on Twitter next week is going to be lovely.”

He later took to the social media site and made reference to the joke, posting an image of Bob Dylan from his famous Subterranean Homesick Blues music video holding a placard which read “Bomb Glastonbury”.

He captioned the post: “Hello new followers and thanks for all the nice comments about HIGNFY! Wow wee Corbyn Twitter’s fun!!!!”

The joke was not well received by some on social media. Writer and broadcaster Dawn Foster labelled Taylor “desperately sad” and accused him of “courting controversy cos no one’s heard of you”.

One critic said: “I just don’t think people see the humour when you’re talking about the deaths of 200,000 people during a pandemic, who would have guessed?”

Someone else tweeted: “Fin Taylor was literally looking forward to the backlash about his disgusting joke inciting the bombing of a music event.

“I shall not give him that joy but he would not be welcome to visit his comedy event upon any town like mine where there were victims of the Arena Bombing.”

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One person said: “Have I Got News For You records for two hours to make a half hour episode, so it really makes you wonder how bad the rest of the recording session was this week if that Glastonbury joke was genuinely one of the best bits for them to keep in.”

Another wrote: “Well, @FinTaylorcomedy saying he wants to bomb Glastonbury to get rid of all the Corbyn ‘fanatics’ on #hignfy was so completely unfunny not even the Corbin hating panel laughed.

“No wonder I’ve never heard of him, if he’s going to make comments like that on tv.”

Watch: Len McCluskey on Jeremy Corbyn