“Comedians are a f***ing vain bunch of passive aggressive needy narcissists for the most part.”

Jeremy Hardy might be stating the obvious but the Radio 4 News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue regular has made a career out of tracking down jokes lesser comedians tend to miss.

“I think I find jokes other comedians don’t find, which is my strength,” explains the dissident joker, sipping tea at home, at a time he says is far too early for a night-time entertainer to be talking to the press.

“I think it’s a talent all comedians that stand out have. It’s like pigs with truffles, you have some homing instinct, which means you find jokes other people wouldn’t find.”

Hardy is certainly fearless. He likes to goad factions he believes are dubious.

He once said all BNP members should be shot in the head. A gig in Burnley had to be pulled on the back of the gag.

He fronted a documentary about non-violent anti-occupation activists operating in the West Bank and Gaza. Ariel Sharon’s tanks arrived in Bethlehem not long after his arrival to film.

“The ISM were indeed peaceful, the Israeli Army, not so much. It all got a bit lairy.”

More recently he’s been up in Glasgow to support protesting students and did a sit-in at a City bank with the Occupy movement. A few on the right no doubt rubbed their hands with glee on hearing his plans to visit Balcombe earlier this year were delayed by a holiday to the bourgeois retreat of Swanage in Dorset. But Hardy is a comic, not an activist.

“I don’t like activism. I don’t like being involved. I am lazy. When I am at a protest, people come up to me for a quote. I say, ‘Can you ask someone more lucid, who has more to say?’ I will go down as a foot soldier.”

He prefers to be one of the mob. He says platform speaking is for grandstanders who “are more articulate and interesting”.

“I would never do Question Time. Rather than engage in debate, I would say I don’t know, or f*** you. I have no way of arguing politely. I don’t have those skills.”

That heart-sinking terror when audiences clap for a well-made point rather than a gag frightens the 1988 Perrier Award winner. “Sometimes people are glad someone has said something in a public forum and they don’t care whether it is funny or not – and that’s fair enough.

“I watch and hear comedians do moving things and it’s not funny but I’m really glad they’ve said it.”

But comedians should shed light and entertain. He wants laughs not applause. There is fission when he plays Chipping Norton – home to David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and Jeremy Clarkson – but Brighton, with its Green MP and liberal reputation, tends to favour Hardy getting a good crowd.

Still, “there are people in Brighton who do circus skills on beach, which I find fairly repugnant and unforgiveable, and people in Brighton are so pleased with themselves.

“A lot of people have moved there and feel really proud it is not London. I just feel like most places aren’t London. “People say, ‘I couldn’t hack living in London’, and I say it’s a sign of your weakness and lack of moral fibre. It doesn’t make you a good person.”