Refugees cross the Serbian-Hungarian border last week. Photograph: Matthias Schrader/AP

On Monday, David Cameron revealed that a Welsh Isis recruit had been killed in Syria by an unmanned drone, or defence secretary Michael Fallon, as the unmanned drone is better known.

The Sun responded with characteristic restraint, depicting the Welsh terrorist’s head in cross hairs, alongside a coupon you could save for a chance to get your own unmanned drone and carry out the next killing yourself.

Amazon are in talks with Michael Fallon about a public-private finance initiative. Could an unmanned drone drop off a birthday copy of Richard Hammond’s Caravan Confidential book at your dad’s house in Kidderminster while en route to Syria to take out another Welsh terrorist? And would the chancellor be able to ensure that any savings made were passed on to Amazon shareholders as non-taxable dividends? And can we be certain that human error doesn’t leave your dad’s semi destroyed, while Isis murderers get to sit around in Syria having a laugh at how rubbish Richard Hammond says caravans are?

While I appreciate the need for drastic action, and commend the diligent drone on a job well done, I am not sure it is terribly civilised to actively celebrate the foolish Welshman’s death. Nonetheless, Cameron’s next step must be to kill one Isis recruit a piece from Scotland and Northern Ireland too, so as he doesn’t appear to be targeting any of his English partner nations’ home-grown terrorists unfairly.

On Tuesday, I discussed with a Quaker acquaintance whether we should take refugees into our homes. The problem is my spare room roof has fallen in, and now the whole attic conversion needs recarpeting, replastering, and repainting. At the moment it looks like a bomb has hit it, and I became genuinely confused as to whether this was appropriate accommodation or not.

I wondered if a nice Syrian family might move in and do it all up for me, as I don’t have the time. Then I realised that I was entertaining an arrangement that could, conceivably, on some level, be described as crudely exploitative in the very worst possible sense.

Last Sunday, because I am much better than you, I took donations for the migrants to a collection point in Dalston. I did wonder what sort of booty the CalAid volunteers would harvest from our admirably diverse borough. Orthodox Jewish skull caps, Islamic hijabs, Quakers’ white tights, gay bondage rubber gimp suits, feminist dungarees, and ironic 70s soft-rock hipster T-shirts. And that was just in the bin bag I took down!

So you like jokes, eh, monkey boy? Well, since January, like some kind of horrible laughing fly, vomiting the enzyme of satire onto the rotten vegetable of human tragedy, I have been trying to work out how to do a standup comedy routine that addressed the migrant crisis. This was not an attempt to be deliberately tasteless or politically incorrect. I think political correctness is a good thing.

Indeed, I believe it was the broadcaster and thinker Toby Young who once said of me, “He essentially uses comedy to browbeat people into agreeing with his dogmatic leftwing points of view, taking what is the prevailing politically correct dogma of his generation and using comedy as an instrument to enforce conformity, not as a means of subversion.” It’s probably the most accurate review I have received, and one I regularly use on posters.

I need six half-hour standup routines written by December for my next BBC2 series. I had a workable 30 minutes on the go after Christmas about Ukip, and while I personally welcome the failure of the far right, (see above), I was professionally worried that the amusing party might disappear after the May elections and render my new routine irrelevant.

My sofa was paid for with humanity’s tears. Don’t imagine I am proud of this process

Consequently, I actually spent much of March and April in Kent campaigning for Ukip out of pure self-interest, just to be able to keep the bit in, but all to no avail. Sadly my serviceable “lining a cat litter tray with an England flag” half-hour is now in the used joke bin.

I am in a symbiotic relationship with The Appalling. The worse the world becomes, the easier it is for me to make fun of it for financial gain. My sofa was paid for with humanity’s tears. Don’t imagine I am proud of this process.

The migrant crisis is much worse than, for example, a large number of buses all arriving at once, so you would imagine it would be easy to write standup comedy about. But I have been wrestling with the subject for months now. I’m not trying to make light of the terrible situation, but I wish Isis and Tony Blair and President Assad would think of some of the hidden costs of their actions. I’m just trying to make a living here.

From April to June I tried a bit where I pictured myself trying to stop hordes of migrants swarming into my garden to escape being beheaded in the garden next door. But it seemed too brutal to say aloud to paying punters who had innocently booked a babysitter for a fun night out in good faith.

In the end, I squeezed an Observer column from the idea, instead of delivering the words personally to confused unsympathetic audiences. Back in those simpler times of summer, people were still unsure of what they felt about the migrants. Pundits spoke of vermin and cockroaches. And prime ministers talked of swarms.

The drowned dead no longer swarm, it seems

Then a Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach, where maybe you had been on holiday. And on Wednesday you watched film of a Hungarian woman kicking a frightened girl, and sending a fleeing man tumbling to the ground, his child in his arms. And over the last fortnight the migrant crisis moved in your minds from the realm of abstract information into a flesh and blood reality of palpable suffering.

Now, even David Cameron proclaims an emotional understanding of events. But only “as a father”, not as a human generally, which might have been a more profitable outcome of the hours doubtless spent sculpting his statement. The drowned dead no longer swarm, it seems.

So the big boil is lanced at last. But how long will the fashion for compassion last? In 10 minutes, I’ll leave this Premier Inn room and go down to the cellar of a Brighton cafe, and read these words aloud to 25 people, to see if and why, at this point in time, anyone laughs. And then I’ll start the rewrite. It’s a living.

Stewart Lee’s A Room With a Stew is at Leicester Square theatre, London WC2 from 21 Sept. stewartlee.co.uk