RIP, Jeremy Hardy, one of the UK's funniest lefty comedians

I first encountered Jeremy Hardy as a panelist on Radio 4's News Quiz, where he frequently reduced me to tears of hysterical laughter; I went on to buy the full back-catalogue of his old Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation shows and devoured them, going back for several re-listens.

Hardy is dead, and too young: cancer took him at 57.

On Crooked Timber, Harry Brighouse remembers Hardy: 'I sometimes wondered whether you had to (roughly) share his politics to find him funny: my evidence against this is that my friend from secondary school who says she’s voted for every major political party loved him as much as I do and, now, Hugo Rifkind’s charming twit.'

The Guardian's Mark Lawson provides a detailed obit: 'Hardy’s political history and identity is neatly captured by two recent tweets. The comedian’s own last message on his official account – sent at 2.40am on 8 January – attacked Tony Blair’s latest intervention in the Brexit debate, warning that the former premier risked precipitating hard Brexit and a right-wing Tory government. Then, after Hardy’s death, a tweet from Jeremy Corbyn’s account read: 'Jeremy Hardy was a dear, lifelong friend. He always gave his all for everyone else and the campaigns for social justice.'

I might go as far as to say, that if Tony Blair doesn’t reign in a tiny bit of an ego, he’ll give us hard Brexit and a Right-Wing Tory government.— Jeremy Hardy (@JeremyJHardy) January 8, 2019

(Image:
Andy Davison, CC-BY-SA)