John [Cleese] wrote: “I was looking forward to talking to students at the Cambridge Union this Friday, but I hear that someone there has been blacklisted for doing an impersonation of Hitler

“I regret that I did the same on a Monty Python show, so I am blacklisting myself before someone else does,” he added.

The star went on to apologise for his absence before hitting out at the institution’s “woke rules”.

“I apologise to anyone at Cambridge who was hoping to talk with me, but perhaps some of you can find a venue where woke rules do not apply,” John said.