Monday, December 05, 2011

Know Your Enemy

A bit behind the times, but...

"I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families."

Jeremy Clarkson takes a typically diplomatic and sympathetic line on last week's public sector strikes. Let's just hope that he manages to injure himself attempting some daft stunt for the Top Gear cameras and finds himself at the mercy of NHS doctors and nurses in A&E...

3 comments:

Simon said...

I think you may have omitted the context of that line?

MB: And we have got Jeremy Clarkson.
JC: Thank you very much.
MB: So Jeremy, schools, hospitals, airports, even driving tests have been affected. Do you the strikes are a good idea?
JC: I think they have been fantastic. Seriously … London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty.
AJ: The traffic actually has been very good today.
JC: Very light. Now airports, you know, people streaming through with no problems at all and it is also like being back in the 70s, it makes me feel at home somehow.
MB: Do you know anybody who has been on strike today?
JC: What, in public service? Of course I do not. No, absolutely. We have to balance it though, because this is the BBC.
MB: Yes. Exactly.
JC: Frankly, I would have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean how dare they go on strike when they have got these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?
MB: Well, on that note of balancing an opinion of course those are Jeremy's views.
AJ: Only Jeremy's views.
JC: They are not. I was just giving two views for you.

Clarkson has many odious and stupid views, but this is very obviously a joke.

Fiona said...

Be fair, Ben - in the full clip the words preceding that line were something like "Oh the strikes are great, London is so peaceful and you can get a table in any restaurant. But in the interests of balance on the BBC I should also say...". It was a two-part joke aimed at BBC pseudo-neutrality, if not scripted by, apparently approved by the producers, which has been mis-reported. Please see the cutting-edge reportage on Have I Got News For You for the full clip, as no one else seems to want to show it.

Ben said...

Fair enough, the context makes the comment look a little less offensive. But the problem with Clarkson is that he's expressed not dissimilar views before so this is something of a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. And in any case, isn't it perfectly possible for something to be both an intentional joke and offensive? If not, then Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson are owed an apology...

The BBC are of course culpable of giving him a platform to spout off - not sure whose bright idea it was to get him in to comment on the news.