The golden age of Twitter is long gone

Andrew Lawrence tweeted that he would drive through crowds of people to get out of Liverpool .

Hot Water comedy club Hot Water said Lawrence is not welcome at any of our events or venues.

Comedy Store in London , the UK ’s principal live-comedy venue, re-posted the Hot Water statement and vowed to stand beside’ the comedy club and the people of Liverpool . Lawrence himself has doubled down, posting a series of ever more disobliging assessments of Liverpool ’s charm and of Scousers ’ capacity to take a joke.

Many valuable dissident voices, some mischievous and ironic, were back and were able to speak clearly, without stammering to avoid the tripwires of cancellation.

But since then, there has been a deterioration of the user experience’ on X.

Many of the left-leaning accounts with whom I used to enjoy cross-party banter have gone fellow comedians chief among them.

The saloon bar of online discourse is much less rich now than it was.