Cleese accuses BBC boss of ‘social engineering’

John Cleese has accused the BBC of “social engineering” after Shane Allen, the corporation’s head of comedy, said Monty Python’s six white Oxbridge males were out of step with modern television.

Cleese joked that Python’s members met the BBC’S diversity targets because they included a “poof ” and “no slave-owners”, and said his Ministry of Silly Walks sketch would now be considered “a slur on the handicapped”.

Cleese said of Allen: “His real title is ‘Head of Social Engineering’. Which is an excellent enterprise, although not very closely connected to comedy. In fact, it’s almost exactly its polar opposite.”