THE last time I saw Have I Got News For You, they had Ray Winstone in the chair.

He's an actor, better than he lets on, who specialises in Cockney psycho stereotypes and makes proper money from football betting promotions. If he ever had to advertise, "Affable Geezer, Can Do Sinister" would be on his card.

As it happened, Winstone was reading from cards while setting up gags for Ian Hislop and Paul Merton. Such is the function of the celebrity host. It's not his job, necessarily, to understand or care about what he might be reading, least of all if it involves a notional currency union between a theoretically independent Scotland and a leftover UK.

The jokes were supposed to come, in this exchange, from Hislop. Alex Salmond? "His title isn't clear yet, it may be king." Scotland's wishes? "We haven't asked them on the referendum." The presumptive pronoun aside, it was the usual stuff. I make some of those jokes myself about the maximum leader. But, forra larf, just a week and a bit ago, Ray kept on reading.

Of Jocks: "Their chief exports being oil, whisky, tartan and tramps." Of a possible currency union: "One for the audience. Should we all be happy to let the Scots keep the pound, or should we just tell them to b***er off? Hands up who says, 'B***er off'?"

A brief shot of the audience showed an overwhelming majority in favour of the comedy proposition that Scotland should sodomise itself. First, I thought: is that really how you feel about this blessed union? Then I thought: course you do, but why should I care? The b***ering off proposition will be getting my vote in September 2014.

No offence taken, then. None of the indignation that prompted a reported 100 people to complain to the BBC. Had Winstone said, "Hands up if you think the Scots should tell us to b***er off", it might have raised a smile, but it still wouldn't have been much of a joke. Somehow the idea that there are 100 people with the time and energy to turn shouting at the TV into an organised hobby is funnier.

I didn't hear Radio 4's News Quiz a couple of Fridays ago, which was a pity. It's one of the last bastions of satire left to a cowed BBC. But the person I live with never misses the Quiz, and reported that it was very funny. She was especially taken with a running gag involving Susan Calman, Miles Jupp and the former's referendum voting intentions.

Shockingly, my partner betrayed her entire nation – heritage, culture, ancestry: you fill in the rest – by failing to be even slightly offended. She had obviously suffered patriotism failure. Either that, or she had made the mistake of thinking that a comedy show presupposes a sense of humour in the audience.

The joke, as I understand it, was that Calman was incisively witty in refusing to give a referendum preference. She also had several funny things to say about politicians who call themselves Unionists. Hardly a case for the Thought Police, you might think. If so, you'd be naïve.

She got dog's abuse. As Calman reported on her blog, some of the heroically anonymous stuff was unpleasant and personal. She also had important things to say about the need for laughter at this juncture in our country's affairs. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of "a sh** storm" whenever she does her job and makes a joke that doesn't sound like a VisitScotland advert.

Unfortunately for her, some newspapers decided to adapt her statements to illustrate the thesis that nationalism is the preserve of bullying bigots. Where the referendum is concerned, a hearts and minds campaign is going on. All we need now are a few minds.

The kind of abuse suffered by Calman is real enough, and strange enough. It is one reason why this newspaper decided that anyone who wants to make below-the-line comments online shouldn't hide behind a made-up name. Specious libertarian arguments aside, what is there to be afraid of? Just the old dishing it out and taking it problem, I suspect.

The name on this page is real (the picture too, God help us). If I say that the types who subjected Susan Calman to their semi-literate, semi-rational abuse will lose us this referendum if they keep it up, you'll know who said it.

Don't get me wrong. I know how this game is being played. The No campaign and Her Majesty's Press Corps are desperate to find CyberNats and "anti-English bias" at every turn. The idea is to shut down argument by portraying all nationalism as nasty and therefore illegitimate. So don't do them any favours, eh? The point is to be smart, not savage.

It won't cure the fact that some people shouldn't be left in charge of a computer keyboard, or explain the relationship between online comment and vitriolic abuse. It will remain a fact, too, that some have unpleasant ideas about what constitutes a "real Scot" and, worse, who gets to judge.

Several figures in the SNP and Yes Scotland have called for online order in the wake of Calman's experiences. It's about time. If anyone is proposing an independent country that can't take a joke and can't tell the truth, I can guarantee a fine little civil war.

The papers that went to battle over Susan Calman seemed less distressed by Winstone, oddly enough. Just banter, you see, and very funny for those with a proper, grown-up sense of humour. Unionists, in other words. In January, when the Guardian published a cartoon by avowed socialist Steve Bell – no relation – advocating that, constitutionally speaking, Scotland should "go and f*** itself", reactions were also muted. The lack of a reaction was funnier than the drawing.

Yet when Alasdair Gray, one of our finest writers, picked a couple of words unwisely while describing how Scotland stands on the arts world's career ladder, huffing and puffing was loud in the land. Such was the outrage, you would think he had told some English folk to b***er off.

Susan Calman's point is worth preserving. What you get with a sense of humour is a sense of perspective. Could you go on watching a Scottish football team without being able to laugh? It's not as comical as watching England, obviously, but Ray Winstone could probably give the odds against a sensible person doing that.