It’s boring, isn’t it? Watching, as the circus that is the annual Clarkson kerfuffle rolls around again? Oh blimey, what’s he said now? How has he managed to be too offensive/racist/sexist/insert-unacceptable-behaviour-here this time? It’s become typical, up to the point where it almost seems to be a big fuss about nothing. Especially with the continuing tensions in the Middle-East, the increase of religious fundamentalism, NATO’s stand-off with Russia over the Ukraine and the ongoing crush of austerity. It almost seems somewhat trivial.
Because, surely, Clarkson doesn’t say anything that bad, does he? And even if he did, was it really racism? It’s just Jezza, that’s what he’s like. I mean, are we still having this discussion?
It does seem trivial. But it shouldn’t. It would be a trivial matter, except that Clarkson is still in his job.
It is quite possible that he will still be presenting 
Top Gear even after this latest unnecessary transgression has trundled past. But he shouldn’t be. The fact that he has not been fired is an insult to every hard-working person in any of the nations that Top Gear is shown in. Why? Because you would have been sacked for any one of those offences, let alone for punching a co-worker! Immediately. And not one of us would have questioned the decision. So why not Clarkson?
Jeremy Clarkson has provoked this conflict, as he has the majority of Top Gear’s numerous controversies. He knows that this is not a moral issue, but a contractual one. This is about Clarkson’s earning power, and how rich or influential you need to be in order to get away with it.
Every year, when the latest outrage surfaces, I repost Steve Coogan’s wonderfully articulated response to Top Gear’s now-habitual incident of contemptuousness, whereby Coogan expressed something we all agree on, that although Top Gear has proved itself to be consistently entertaining and, despite everything, we tend to like the three presenters… enough is enough. The article resonated with me because it was a not a banshee-wail for Clarkson’s removal but rather it is an impassioned plea that the Top Gear boys just tone it down and stop being so unnecessarily callous.
However, Coogan’s article was written in 2011, referring to Top Gear statements at the time that Mexican cars were, much like Mexicans themselves, ‘lazy’ and ‘feckless’ and that their food resembled ‘sick with cheese on it’, yet little appears to have changed since. That year’s series also elicited complaints due to homophobic comments about George Michael and, even more deplorably (although made outside of Top Gear), Clarkson’s comments that public sector workers, who were striking at that time to demand fairer pay, be ‘executed in front of their families’.
Since that incident, the lads have managed to cause offense in India, including driving a Jaguar with a toilet mounted on it around a slum, while 2013 saw the surfacing of Clarkson’s (initially unaired) muttering of ‘eeny, meeny, miny moe, catch a nigger by his toe…’ gaffe, for which he received a ‘final warning’. Last year actually saw a rise in instances of controversy, with Jeremy in Thailand joking about a ‘slope on a bridge’ and October’s inflammatory Argentina trip, which resulted in the Top Gear crew being attacked with stones and forced to flee the country.
Now Jeremy has punched a producer for not having organised his food on time. Clarkson seems to have no shame regarding the act, nor any fear of reprisal. He just doesn’t care. Most likely, it is because he knows that he and the Top Gear brand are big business. With profits of £50 million worldwide per year, broadcasting to more than 50 countries and with a worldwide audience of 350 million, we understand why the decision is a difficult one, financially speaking.
But this kind of thinking is backwards. The very fact that Top Gear has such global appeal and a massive fan-base should be a case for ensuring that its presenters conduct themselves admirably, that they act as respected and beloved international statesmen. It should not be a license for three rich, white men to indulge in casual racism, dangerous stereotyping and seemingly thoughtless social insensitivity. None of us would get away with the kind of wanton behaviour they indulge in and keep our job, so neither should they. It is similar to the defence extended to the Liverpool footballer Luis Suarez, who repeatedly bit opponents on the pitch but was too important to punish severely, and too valuable to fire. A vast amount of money had been invested in him, so only a lip service to punishment was meted out. Money buys impunity, and even if it doesn’t, it certainly takes the sting out of taking risks that could lose you your job.
Such wealth makes it very difficult to punish these people, as they have very little to lose. And this power is what Clarkson appears to be demonstrating, that he is too rich and important, too big to fail, for the BBC to do anything about it. Clarkson resides up there with the über-wealthy right, next to the unimpeachable Rupert Murdoch and alongside the tax cheats of HSBC. His friend and neighbour David Cameron, another of the ‘Chipping Norton Set’, has already defended him publically.
They seem to be making a unified statement; that when someone becomes this rich, influential or powerful, then such lowly concerns as assaulting a co-worker (let alone subversion of the law, tax evasion, etc.) are below them. These are the setbacks that afflict the lives of the plebs, not the ultra-rich.
In Murdoch and HSBC’s cases, their defence is made by our government, corporate law and politics, but with Top Gear’s immense public popularity, the issue becomes more muddled. That we enjoy Top Gear should not mean that we have to accept the casual racism Clarkson champions and with its fantastic production values the show would surely outlast his demise. However, by signing the petition to reinstate him, you are tacitly agreeing to a two-tier class system, whereby we serfs must accept one set of living standards, rules and punishments, whereas those with wealth and influence are given free rein to do as they please.
No one, in a fair and equal society, is untouchable. Jeremy Clarkson should be sacked for his continued, and continuing, disregard for the rules, let alone the unabated, and unarguably unacceptable, offensive statements he chooses to make. He should, at the very least, be punishable in a way that might force him to change his public behaviour.
If not, then, despite his popularity, he is just a pompous, bigoted and self-serving aristocrat.
A Farage in an unreasonably priced car.
The Bland Corporation 