Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 22 March 2022.
While the spectre of fascism is stalking Europe again, the comedian Jimmy Carr is still refusing to apologise for implying that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Gypsies at the hands of the Nazis was somehow something to be celebrated. Next Monday, he is performing in our capital city at St David's Hall. Welsh Gypsies are asking the venue to cancel the performance in solidarity with them. St David's Hall is owned and managed by Cardiff Council and subsidised by the Arts Council of Wales, which the Welsh Government funds. As First Minister, and indeed as leader of the Labour Party in Wales, will you ask the Labour leadership of Cardiff Council to agree to the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities' entirely reasonable demand, in the circumstances, that no publicly funded venue should be a platform for an unrepentant purveyor of racist tropes? If they refuse to do so, will you ask the arts council to urgently review the terms of its funding?