Garnett man

I've just been watching some Sickness & Health DVDs on my little portable player. (hey - it's really good and I can recommend the idea of having such a gadget).
I am amazed all over again that Alf was allowed to put his head over the parapet. I knew quite a lot of Alfs as I was growing up and when I was earning my pocket money working for my father. To me, what he said was nothing terrible - like some of the Little Britain characters are - but was the everyday attitude of a lot of people expressed in a humourous way.
However, just to see what his status is now, have a look at the Wiki entry:

Alf Garnett was a fictional character on the BBC television sitcom Til Death Us Do Part and later In Sickness and in Health.

The character, played by actor Warren Mitchell, was reactionary, mean-spirited, selfish, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic, despite allegedly being Jewish himself. Generally he blamed his problems on everybody else. His family was the usual target of his anger and frustration. On the show, Garnett was regularly ridiculed for his illogical views and hypocrisy by his family, but he stubbornly refused to admit he was wrong.

To add entertainment to the show, Alf was outraged when his daughter, Rita (played by Una Stubbs), decided to marry Michael, her long-haired, unemployed boyfriend (played by Anthony Booth) from Liverpool, a Catholic of Irish descent; precisely the type of person Alf most hated.

Alf was generally a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party (though not Margaret Thatcher) and he supported West Ham United as well as being an admirer of the Queen and the Royal Family.

The British public loved Alf Garnett, although the television show was heavily criticised for the character's prejudices. Writer Johnny Speight often commented that the character was supposed to be a figure of ridicule, but admits that not all viewers saw the satiric elements of the character.

It is perhaps not a complete coincidence that Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett looks very similar to Sir Rudyard Kipling, who has also been perceived as paternalistic racist; however, Mitchell was not the first choice of producer Dennis Main Wilson for the part. It was initially offered to Peter Sellers, Leo McKern and Lionel Jeffries, but they all turned it down or were unavailable.

Alf Garnett was the direct inspiration for Archie Bunker in the American sitcom All in the Family.