How can we be at a stage where a comedian who makes rape jokes is fine but one who defends women is banned?

SO, let me get this right: At the Edinburgh Fringe, comedians who make jokes about killing and raping women are welcome but comedians who defend women’s rights are not?

How else are we to explain the surreal situation where Frankie Boyle, notorious cracker of misogynistic gags, is having the red carpet rolled out for him at the Fringe, while Graham Linehan, whose chief thoughtcrime is to understand what a woman is, has just been ruthlessly cancelled by one of the Fringe venues?

On Tuesday, the Leith Arches in Edinburgh pulled the plug on a comedy night organised by Comedy Unleashed, which was due to take place this week.

Mr Linehan was on the line-up, you see, and his wrongthink, his outrageous belief in biological sex, his insistence that people with penises should stay out of women-only spaces, apparently makes him morally unfit for the kingdom of comedy.

Yes, he may have created such comedy classics as Father Ted and Black Books.