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Retail & Consumer

Sacked Iceland director says comments about Wales were just meant to be funny

Keith Hann, who was let go by the Welsh supermarket firm last week, criticises what he calls ‘cancel culture’

The former director at Iceland who was sacked last week over comments he made about Wales and the Welsh language has defended himself - saying it was just meant to be funny.

Keith Hann, who was director of corporate affairs at the Flintshire-headquartered supermarket firm, has written an article that says "the 'cancel culture' that is sadly becoming the norm in the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ is plain wrong".

Mr Hann says it had never occurred to him that he should include the standard words "All views entirely my own" in his Twitter biography.

"It seemed a waste of precious characters when this was surely bleeding obvious, not least because my employer was by no means exempt from being treated as the butt of my attempted humour," he wrote in the article on .

"With hindsight, this proved a very expensive mistake."

In the article Mr Hann he recognises that his humour is not to everyone’s taste.

"I am an elderly (66), white, middle class, Oxbridge-educated, libertarian Geordie who grew up with the comedy of Hancock, Round The Horne, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, Monty Python, Morecambe & Wise, and – yes – Benny Hill and Bernard Manning," he wrote.

"There are plenty of things I still find funny that would never make it onto terrestrial TV at all these days, even with a long prior apology and trigger warning."