Shazia Mirza on the culture of hate: “Once we blamed Yoko Ono. Now we blame refugees”

The stand-up comedian known for her dead-pan delivery of jokes about Islamic State slams the government’s attitude towards people fleeing conflict.

By Shazia Mirza

Hate and lies are all the rage. Everyone’s at it. “Obama is the founder of ISIS!” and everyone believes the Trump. “We’re at breaking point” – look, here’s a poster of lots of brown men that look just like your dad, cousin and brother. If you vote out, all these scavengers that come over here for the good life, they’ll be gone in the morning.

Hate is fashionable. It’s flourishing in the comments section of the Daily Mail, Facebook, and this morning I saw some photographs on Twitter of Madonna’s cellulite with the comment: “I thought grandma had died of AIDS.”