Comedian Nish Kumar hit out after being accused of criticising 'free speech' at an awards event.

Nish spoke out at a disparaging article in the Times which suggested that he was trashing the principle of free speech at the “Freedom of Expression” awards.

It prompted Piers Morgan to call Nish an 'insufferably smug, desperately unfunny & absurdly hypocritical'.

But Nish was having none of it.

In a series of Tweets he said, "Look I ignored that Matthew Parris article in The Times but now P*ers M*rgan has waded in I imagine I’ll get asked about it relentlessly so let me leave this here so I never had to talk about it again.

"The article is riven with falsehoods. I got asked to host the Freedom of Expression Awards. I was happy to do it. I found out the Daily Mail were one of the sponsors."

He continued, "I thought it was funny that the Mail were up for defending Freedom of Expression given that in article in the Mail published on 16/12/18 a writer suggested that BBC comedy was “anti-Conservative propaganda” & “something must be done”

"That sounded to me, suspiciously like a newspaper calling for censorship. I thought that was a funny irony. Parris claims that I criticised the Mail for calling the press enemies of the people. This is untrue.

"I criticised Donald Trump for that, referring to a clip shown in a video montage compiled by the organisers of the event that played before I walked onstage.

"At no point did I call for the Mail to be censored. At no point did I attack freedom of speech. I have no idea where Parris has got those ideas from. He may have hit the free bar a little too hard before the show.

"I suggested that there was an irony in the Mail demanding “something” be done about a comedy show and supporting freedom of expression. I thought it was funny. Humour is, of course, subjective.

"Oh and also I didn’t call the Mail a “shitrag”. I called it a “hatemongering shitrag that can fuck off”. Please quote me correctly. I never called for it to be banned, because I believe in freedom of speech. The same freedom of speech I used to tell that shitrag to fuck off. END"