I choked on my polenta when I was listening to BBC News over supper and heard some grim harridan talking about the offence she had taken (on behalf of her members, as I think she was something to do with a union) at Saint Jeremy's comments on The One Show.
I was going to write a foaming and angry post about how some people just need to get a life and see a jokey remark as just that, but then I saw this post by The Heresiarch and decided not to bother. He says it all far better than I could, and fillets UNISON's press release mercilessly.
I didn't think anything could make me think worse of trades union leaders than I already did, but their response has proved me wrong.
IT. WAS. A. FUCKING. JOKE.
A bit like those the left makes about dancing on Thatcher's grave, or blowing up schoolchildren in the cause of climate change. Those were humorous, weren't they?
Weren't they?
Especially so in the context that the comments were made.
ReplyDeleteAnyway Clarkson does not work for the BBC so he cannot be sacked. He works for his production company that owns the rights to Top Gear (or something like that!)
Sour old hag Jennings explains "this is incitement to hatred" which is exactly where that insidious law is taking us. Clarkson was joking but she would have him arrested.
ReplyDeleteMr Clarkson has made a fortune by having very "defined" opinions. Once you remember that, it's easy to understand him.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I managed to blag some passes to "Top Gear Live" in London last week. The static show wasn't entirely to my taste, and Tiff Needell really shouldn't do pantomime. However, the two live shows (about 2.5 hours in total) were rather impressive. Well choreographed, a wide spread of vehicles from go-karts to Gp B Rally cars to exotica, and Derek Bell turning a Bowler over on the track.
I liked Clarkson's 'apology' which said, basically, if the BBC want to apologise, I will join them. Less than fulsome.
ReplyDeleteIt's very sad that, for some inadequate people, what is clearly a joke (although a bit of a crass one) is the basis for legal action to silence the dissenter. Calling his remarks 'incitement to hatred' is just hysterical.
We've lost all sense of proportion in this country...
ReplyDeleteI heard somebody on the radio trying to make a bizarre point: it was particularly worthy of a sacking because Clarkson had added the 'in front of their family' bit. No - that bit of 'extreme' was added to the end to make sure everyone knew it was not a serious comment. Some folk must live in a very cramped mental World.
ReplyDeleteLack of proportion, agreed. It's of a piece with almost everything we read in the news, however: no robust debate, no edgy humour, UNLESS in the service of the great god of 'progressiveness'.
ReplyDeleteThink of the reaction of the 10:10 people to the outcry over the exploding dissidents video, though. It was meant to be funny, the Right couldn't take a joke, humour is always OK if it's in the cause of the Good, get a sense of proportion. Turn the tables, and suddenly everyone's wetting themselves because the humour is 'inappropriate' and 'an incitement to hatred'.
Consistency is a virtue, even - or perhaps especially - among the Left.
One wonders how people who are genuinely so thin-skinned and pathetically devastated by hearing a single, exaggeratedly coarse remark cope with any real adversity. However, as one actually suspects there is very little genuineness involved, the question is more: how can people have so little self-respect as to whine like complete sissies every time somebody says something they don't think is nice enough?
ReplyDeleteI actually resent the fact that these sort of people are allowed to continue wasting our communal oxygen on such po-faced trivialities. They should have to return it, with interest, all at once. In front of their families. If that was to result in the mass suffocation of right-on lefty hypocrites, well, no loss, is it?
These people are "professional" disgusted. I once sat next to a couple on the tube, they were going through the Evening Standard, ticking things they could complain about the following day. It turned out they worked for the campaign for racial equality, by the time I got off the train they had almost work themselves up to an orgasm of fake indignation.
ReplyDeleteNothing much changes, that was 25 years ago!
Endo, completely agree. I think the unions' absurdly hysterical reaction ("urgent legal advice", "considering calling the police") has shot them in the foot. They just look pathetic, and Clarkson looks like a hero. Not quite the intended result.
ReplyDeleteMoppy, those 'equality' people have a long history of taking professional offence. We tend to think of it as being a phenomenon that started under Blair's Labour party, but your experience shows the agenda has been there for much longer.