‘Sexist’ Salmond is throwback to Benny Hill, says Sturgeon...
HIS most famous sketches saw him groping girls and chasing them around to the tune of Yakety Sax.
But in the years since Benny Hill graced our TV screens, his brand of humour has been widely condemned as sexist and outdated.
So Alex Salmond received something of a public dressing down yesterday when Nicola Sturgeon said a joke he had made about having sex with her was a throwback to the Benny Hill era.
The First Minister publicly rebuked her predecessor after he was criticised for making the joke on the opening day of his Edinburgh Fringe show.
Mr Salmond has rejected calls from opponents and equality campaigners to apologise.
The joke was made on the first day of Alex Salmond... Un- leashed at the Assembly Rooms on Sunday. He said: ‘I promised you today we’d either have Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon, or Ruth Davidson or Melania Trump, but I couldn’t make any of these wonderful women come...’ After the band hit a ‘bud-dum’ on the drums, he added: ‘...to the show.’
Speaking to the BBC in Montrose, Angus, yesterday, where her Cabinet was meeting, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘The first thing I would say is that Alex Salmond is not sexist. I’m fairly well qualified to comment on this because I’ve worked with Alex Salmond very closely for almost 30 years now, so he’s not sexist.
‘The second thing I would say though is that occasionally Alex is not always as funny as he thinks he is – and perhaps this is an example of a joke that perhaps belongs more in the Benny Hill era than it does in the modern era.’
Although he has refused to apologise, Mr Salmond has pulled the gag from the last two performances of his show.
Yesterday, Labour sources said Miss Sturgeon had not gone far enough in condemning him – and pointed out that she had been far more critical of high street retailer Clarks at the weekend.
The First Minister took to social media site Twitter to criticise the company for its decision to introduce a Dolly Babe range for girls and a Leader alternative for boys.
She said: ‘It is almost beyond belief in 2017 a major company could think this is in any way acceptable. Shows what we are still up against.’
Following the initial reaction to Mr Salmond’s joke, a spokesman for the former First Minister said the criticism by Scottish Labour, which is led by Kezia Dugdale, was because they were ‘just miffed they didn’t get a mention’.
‘He’s not always as funny as he thinks’