In a move that has reignited concerns about the narrowing boundaries of acceptable speech and expression, a London gallery has pulled an exhibition celebrating Britain’s storied tradition of political cartooning on the grounds that it might offend.
Titled Licence To Offend, the show was intended as a tribute to satire’s role in a healthy democracy. It brought together dozens of works by cartoonists from across the political spectrum, including long-standing Fleet Street names such as Mac (Stanley McMurtry) and Jonathan Pugh, as well as the Guardian’s Martin Rowson. But on the eve of its opening to the public, organisers were informed that the artwork would have to be removed immediately after its private view.
According to a message sent by curator Zoe Dorelli to participating artists, management at the venue – TownSq, a co-working space on Kingston Riverside in southwest London – felt the work was “too offensive”. The organisers were told that because the company worked with councils around the country, it could not risk appearing “too political” or upsetting visitors.
“We had a great relationship with the venue, but the management freaked out and thought it might be too offensive,” said Dorelli. “They said that maybe some of their members might get upset.”
Jonathan Pugh, whose work has appeared in The Times and The Telegraph, said the decision came despite the venue having known about the exhibition for several weeks. “They have got the jitters,” he said. “They are caving in to something that really is rather unlikely to cause offence.”
Among the cartoons due to be shown was one inspired by the case of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, who earlier this year was visited by police over a now-deleted tweet. Pugh’s cartoon depicts a prisoner telling a bird about having made “some regrettable tweets”.
Mac, whose work has appeared in the Daily Mail for decades, said he and other contributors were “incensed” by the cancellation. “In bygone days satire used to be absolutely savage, but suddenly we can’t express any opinions,” he said. “It is weird because the vast majority of the works have already been scrutinised and passed by editors and published in national newspapers.”
Rob Murray, a cartoonist whose work has featured in Private Eye and the Sunday Times, described the decision as “ridiculous” and said it was “sadly not the first time a few of us have been censored or cancelled by local council types”.
A spokesperson for TownSq said the venue’s decision was driven by a desire to remain politically neutral. “Whilst we have not felt the exhibition was offensive, Kingston Riverside is a workspace, and our policy is to remain politically neutral,” the statement said. “Once we were made aware that the art is not in keeping with a professional workspace, we respectfully asked the artists to remove them after the exhibition.”
Despite TownSq’s decision, the private viewing went ahead as planned. The works, however, will not remain on display.
The decision to pull the show has revived longstanding concerns among artists and free speech campaigners about the increasing reluctance of public-facing institutions to tolerate satire that risks discomforting viewers, regardless of political alignment.
March 2024 saw the Barbican Centre in London come under fire after it cancelled a scheduled talk by writer Pankaj Mishra on the Israel-Gaza conflict. In response, The French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada and the Filipino artist Cian Dayrit withdrew their works from the exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, citing concerns over censorship. In a statement, Barrada said: “We cannot take seriously a public institution that does not hold a space for free thinking and debate, however challenging it might feel to some staff, board members, or anxious politicians.”
That summer, the Royal Academy of Arts faced similar criticism after removing two artworks on the same theme from its Young Artists’ Summer Show, following concerns raised by external groups. The decision prompted an open letter, signed by more than 750 artists, accusing the institution of censorship and the stifling of artistic expression.
More recently, cartoonists themselves have found their work at the centre of workplace controversy.
In early 2025, Reform UK candidate and FSU member Saba Poursaeedi was dismissed from his role as a resident involvement officer at Hightown Housing Association, one of Britain’s largest housing providers. The association claimed that Reform’s policies on immigration, net zero, and housing were “in direct conflict” with its own “values”, and cited as evidence a cartoon from The Telegraph – retweeted by Mr Poursaeedi – which it described as “racist”.
The image in question, drawn by cartoonist Matt Pritchett and published a year earlier, depicted a housewife in a burka, satirising the potential sale of the newspaper to Abu Dhabi amid concerns about human rights abuses in the Gulf state. There has been no previous suggestion the cartoon is racist. Pritchett, a long-time contributor and award-winning cartoonist, is widely known for his understated and gently irreverent take on British public life.
Weeks later, another of his cartoons was cited in the dismissal of FSU member Ben Woods, a senior wine expert at Waitrose. Woods was suspended and then sacked after the company accused him of misconduct over a dossier of more than 30 social media posts. Among them was a retweet of a cartoon joking that a child had failed a sex education class for being unable to name 100 genders, along with other comments criticising the burqa and cousin marriage.
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