PETER HITCHENS is not a funny man: he would not he claim to be. But he has views on comedy. He took exception recently to a "purported comedian" on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel game, The News Quiz, in which it was suggested that the Education Secretary had "a face that makes even the most pacifist of people reach for the shovel in anticipation of reshaping it". Mr Hitchens said that he was not surprised, alleging that The News Quiz was overpopulated with left-wing comedians.

Worries about the lack of subversive, creative voices on the Right are not new. In 2006, Nick Hytner, the artistic director of the Royal National Theatre, said that he could not find a "mischievous right-wing play". Perhaps it is to be expected. Comedians are Angry Young Men.

They say that if you're not a socialist when you're young, you've got no heart; and if you're still a socialist when you're old, you've got no brain. Yet the most potent voices on The News Quiz are Sandi Toksvig, Jeremy Hardy, and Mark Steel, who are older, Leftie, and not lacking in brains. Those on the show who are less left-inclined are rarely comedians or entertainers, but journalists, such as Hugo Rifkind.

FIXING this problem is hard. Radio 4's Comedy Commissioner, Caroline Raphael, has said: "It's very difficult to find comedians from the Right," mentioning that "there isn't a tradition" of right-wing co- medians. I can think of one, but Jim Davidson is not going to be booked by Radio 4 any time soon.

Mr Davidson is one of the last old-fashioned, joke-telling comedians. But the older comedians who thrive on News Quiz-type shows have come up through the "alternative" comedy circuit, dominated by figures such as the Thatcher-hating Ben Elton and the Marxist Alexei Sayle.

The TV equivalent of The News Quiz is BBC1's Have I Got News for You?, which regularly invites right-wing columnists and politicians. But, like The News Quiz, the format favours experienced stand-up comedians, not least because of the way that topical jokes work. They require the fast transmission of information - otherwise, the set-up takes too long, and the audience no longer cares by the time the joke arrives. So stereotypes and "hate" figures are very useful.

THE Left today has a host of butts for any joke you might have about the Right. Hate powerful capitalist élites? You've got Rupert Murdoch, Fred Goodwin, and an Old Etonian Prime Minister, who was in a private dining club with the Chancellor and the Mayor of London. Add some Russian oil barons, millionaire footballers, and a former oil-executive Evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury, and you have a Sergeant Pepper album-cover of faces that are eminently reshapable with a comedy shovel.

If you're on the Right, and looking for left-wing targets, who have you got? The Arthur Scargills and Jimmy Knapps are long gone. It is hard to land a punch on the true enemy of the Right: the nebulous paper-pushers in Whitehall. The bureaucrats in Brussels are the lightning rod for most of those jokes, which muddies the politics a little.

Attacking the Labour leader hardly seems fair. Ed Miliband looks like a sixth-former who has entered - and failed to win - a debating competition.

Now, typing that made me feel mean, and here is the problem for the Right. The Right sounds mean. The Left attacks power and prejudice, as Jesus did. Its supporters are noble Robin Hoods, taking from the rich to give to the poor. In attacking the Left, you are siding with the Sheriff of Nottingham, rich élites, and the Establishment. And the Establishment is not funny.

WHAT happens when the Left is in power? It is hard to say, since in 1997, the Left had been pulled to the Right - or at least to the Centre, which felt like the Right to its supporters. Satire about "spin" turned into spitting rage over the war in Iraq.

The Left treated Tony Blair with all the ruthless malice of Stalin when he finally turned on the charismatic Trotsky. This is why the wealthy Ben Elton gets so much stick from his old Comedy Store chums. Hell hath no fury like a socialist scorned.

Yet, even if the Left does have the best jokes, it is difficult to say what difference it makes. Satirists always say that their jokes have no effect. They are probably right.

For 12 years, Spitting Image portrayed Mrs Thatcher as a deluded psychopath, during which time the Conservatives won three General Elections. Yes, Prime Minister satirised all politics, but was the PM's favourite programme. Like most of the audience, she heard the jokes that she wanted to hear, because she, like most of the audience, had already made up her mind on Left and Right.

The best topical jokes vocalise something that we had secretly thought all along. But we all think contradictory thoughts. We can laugh at jokes that perpetuate stereotypes, because there is truth in age-old prejudices. We also laugh at jokes that subvert stereotypes, because we know that life is not as simple as it can at first appear.

So, do comedy shows such as The News Quiz favour left-wing comedians? You, like Mr Hitchens, have already made up your mind. Any number of jokes one way or the other are probably not going to change it.

James Cary is a BBC comedy writer (Bluestone 42, Miranda), and the author of Death by Civilisation (DLT), which is published this month.