Yet again Brendan O’Neill says something more disgusting than I would have thought possible. Yet again!!
I’m gutted to hear that the BBC has given Clarkson the big heave-ho over his fracas with that producer who didn’t have his dinner ready on time.
Why? Because it’s further evidence of the Beeb’s self-emasculation, its sheepish, apologetic jettisoning of anything that might rile right-thinking viewers or make Hampstead-dwelling licence fee-payers choke on their Ovaltine.
What?????
Clarkson punched his underling in the face. He split his lip. He assaulted him. In what universe does that have anything to do with “right-thinking” or Hampstead? Since when is it “politically correct” to have rules that bosses aren’t allowed to punch their underlings? What the hell is this, Henry 8’s court after nine straight hours of boozing? How is it in any way “sheepish” for the BBC to fire Clarkson for punching an employee? Is the BBC supposed to allow its stars to punch employees? How is this decision the BBC “emasculating” itself? Is that what “masculine” means to Brendan O’Neill – top people being allowed to punch their subordinates in the face with impunity?
Notice also that he too calls it a “fracas.” What bullshit. Call it what it is, not something nicer because you approve of it.
With the elbowing aside of JC, we are witnessing not simply the sacking of an employee over a scuffle, but the willingness of a scandal-stung, crisis-ridden BBC to ditch anything that has the whiff of controversy and to bend its knee to the bland, larks-free worldview of the right-on.
“Controversy”? “Larks”? What is the matter with him? What will he write next – “Hooray for Bullying, Bullying is Fun”? And again, why is he making it about political correctness? Is it only liberals who think the workplace should not be a boxing ring?
In the oceans of ink that have been spilt over Clarksongate, or Punchgate, or whatever gate this is, the least convincing commentary has been that which tries to convince us this is just a workplace disciplinary matter.
Just as you or I would be sacked if we walloped a co-worker, especially someone below us in the pecking order, so Clarkson deserves the boot too, says his army of haters in the media and on Twitter.
Please.
Please, Telegraph, stop paying this loathsome man to write this shit.
And now, cravenly, like a hostage reading from a script written by his captors, the BBC has capitulated and got rid of one of the jewels in its crown, the man who made it millions of pounds and won it millions of viewers around the world.
What gobsmacking idiocy. The BBC had already, in recent years, offered up its cojones for a public kicking, becoming an increasingly wimpish, risk-dodging sorry excuse for a public broadcaster.
He forgot to say the BBC is pussy-whipped. What are you if you offer up your cojones? Pussy-whipped, definitely.
Well done, liberal elite. You’ve won. You’ve made the Beeb as bland as you are.
I won’t miss Clarkson on Top Gear, because I didn’t watch him on it. But millions and millions of people, here and abroad, will miss him. And all of us, Clarkson fans or not, should be worried that the BBC has finally been completely colonised by the dead, dogmatic, fun-free outlook of a minuscule, if hugely influential, section of British society.
It’s a bullies’ charter. He gets more loathsome every time I read him. Next week I suppose he’ll be giving advice on how to burn children with cigarettes when no one is looking.