The sacred clown of the Lakota, The Heyóka, is the perfect comedian. He speaks in gibberish, goes naked in freezing weather, starves when food is plentiful, dances backwards through holy rituals, washes in dirt, and shares his shame with everyone; The shaman-clowns of the pueblos, the koshare, descend from the rooftops, naked and howling, to mock the white tourist, the Catholic priest, the local beauty, the tribal elders, the young bucks, to kiss the crippled, and to take your money, and pass it to the poor, and to baptise stray babies in the babbling brook, with signs and sounds no missionary would recognise; the medieval boufon is roused, drooling, from the straw of his stall in the stable, prodded into life with a pitchfork, and for one day of the year, is encouraged to roam the village, spitting at icons and foaming in the face of authority; “I hate you people,” Jerry Sadowitz told the Montreal Comedy Festival audience in 1991, “half of you speak French, the other half let you, and the language you should be speaking is that of the Indians you stole the country off”, and was promptly punched to the floor by an angry punter. But the twenty-first century comedian arrives for his talk show appearance hot from Hollywood, is complemented on how well he looks and on the relative attractiveness of his wife or girlfriend, exchanges easy banter with the host, and summaries his kiss-and-tell memoir, £14.99, available now. He is of no value.

Admittedly, the above comparisons represent extreme examples of life-threatening artistic purity, and the fictional comedian I pied in the face in the final sentence is very much a straw man. But even GQ subscribers, whose reading habits suggest they are mainly interested in socks and watches rather than ethical and cultural issues, might understand what I’m driving at. Great comedy should not feel like it is co-operating. Les Dawson on Blankety Blank, Laurel and Hardy in the workplace, Chris Morris in the mire of Channel 4’s dumbed-down schedules, and Spike Milligan anywhere, – all felt as if they were happening without permission, in opposition.

The French clown theorist Jaques LeCoq says the comedian should be operating at a level where the next move would result in his death. I think this is to over-state the case, but the question remains; now that a school of comedy, tellingly dubbed ‘alternative’ when I joined its ranks in the Eighties, is so thoroughly co-opted into the economic and cultural mainstream, via advertising, stadium events, packaging into Saturday night television, and cross-platform branding, can it still fulfill its sacred function? And what exactly, I wonder, in an era bereft of values, and where everything is permissible and nothing is unsaid, are comedians supposed to be in opposition to?

When I became a comedian, it was clear. In the Eighties, we were politically correct, opposing jokes that were racist and sexist, and satirizing a Conservative government which, the young Tory voters of today will be surprised to learn, was universally loathed to the point that many of the household names of today in all the arts were able to launch their careers simply off the extent to which they despised it too. But the hard-won battles of political correctness meant that, by the nineties, openly racist and casually sexist jokes had largely disappeared from mainstream culture, and professional libertarians nostalgically tinting the old days would do well to remember The Black And White Minstrel Show or rape jokes on The Two Ronnies at tea time.

In the last decade the tide has turned. Little Britain, Jimmy Carr, and all Channel 4 programs make society’s poorest and most marginalized figures the buts of their jokes, and the popular panel show Mock The Week even uses a feeble pun in its title to make its post-pc taboo-busting intentions clear. As if to provide a living metaphor for once-alternative comedy’s current distance from its radical roots, in December 2007, the one time stand-up comedian Alan Davies famously tried to eat a homeless man’s head whilst leaving London’s exclusive media hang-out, The Grouch Club. Almost the only way for a comedian to remain an outsider, and to keep creatively alert, during this valueless era, has been to appear to favour political correctness, and to oppose things like random tramp-harming, in order to avoid ploughing the same faeces-filled furrow as everyone else.

When this article was commissioned, I was asked to address whether it was possible to be a comedy outsider, having played the National Theatre, which I did earlier this year, with the show If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One? But the audience response as The National was fascinating. Around the country, taking an orthodox liberal position against, say, Top Gear, would often alienate half the room, and result in a sustained battle to win them back. The National Theatre audience of London , (old-school liberals with a small l, as opposed to collaborators who will be shot on sight come the revolution), was the only audience of 150 or so across the country that agreed with every point in the show at face value, draining some of the drama out of the proceedings. They were the exception, not the rule. For the most part, the politically correct brigade remains in retreat, whatever John Gaunt might try and tell you.

Creatively, if not personally, I welcomed the return of the Conservatives, led by the former GQ cover star David Cameron, as I imagined their re-emergence would galvanise the comedy community into a more creative mode. It’s ought to br easier to be the opposition outsider the comedy Gods require the comedian to be, when Cameron’s crew of Etonian Bullingdon Clubbers are so clearly textbook fast-track Insiders. I’m old enough to remember The Conservatives as The Nasty Party of legend, with their explicitly homophobic legislation, covertly racist talk of ‘Cricket Tests’, and the belief that the poor had only themselves to blame, their policies fronted by ludicrously large personalities, ripe for ridicule by radio sketch shows and the wax effigies of Spitting Image, both of which I wrote for.

Can the current crop of comedians of hate and contempt continue to thrive under the new Conservatives? Is it ‘edgy’ to express, often without any apparent irony, the establishment’s own implied values? And can Jeremy Clarkson, for example continue to maintain his manufactured outlaw posture, when the (barely) elected government share his views and attend his birthday party? But as I write, its mid-June, and six weeks after their semi-victory, our new leaders seem to me to be unusually difficult to satirise, and subtly resistant to stereotyping.

In the Eighties, it was easy to be an outsider, in opposition to the Tories, who were hated, as much as anything, because they were posh. But, as Nick Clegg cannily noted in his ultimately doomed election campaign, the old voter loyalties had withered away. Asking comedy club audiences outright about their feelings, it seems to me that random groups of people don’t resent today’s Tories for their privilege, even though their narrow social make-up makes Thatcher’s Tories look like equal-opportunities employers. Council house sales and mass credit opportunities have eroded our collective resentment. There even seems to be a sense, as Nick Cohn implied with the title of his last collection Waiting For The Etonians, of the (now not so common) common man hoping their pure-bred super-elite will return, like Arthur’s sleeping knights, and save the day.

And it’s difficult to actively oppose the Tories, at the moment, from the stage. There’s nothing to get hold of. The Eighties Rotweillers have been moved to the back benches, Dennis Skinner’s heckles across the house about George Osborne’s cocaine days don’t wash with today’s buzzed up voters, no news camera crews ever got near Cameron’s sprawling constituency pile, for fear it might alienate the electorate, and when I try to do material about the quietly hilarious education secretary Michael Gove no-one in the room even knows who he is. I still believe that the Comedian’s sacred role is to be in opposition. The question today is, in opposition to what exactly? At present, the target is made of marshmallow. Punch it, and your fist will disappear.

STEWART LEE