Clarkson and Top Gear producer Oison Tymon have now given evidence to the BBC enquiry, led by Ken MacQuarrie, over their "fracas" in a North Yorkshire hotel.
But could this whole Top Gear debacle, which has led to the remaining three episodes of the current series being pulled - with Hammond and May refusing to film more episodes without Clarkson - have been caused more by the Left's prejudice and hate than by Clarkson's allegedly hitting a Top Gear producer?
STEPHEN GLOVER: Clarkson's real crime? He represents everything the Left hates yet is HUGELY successful
By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail
19 March 2015
Daily Mail
In pulling the remainder of the series, all the BBC has done is highlight how popular Top Gear is
When BBC executives suspended Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson last week, I doubt they had any idea how toxic the issue would turn out to be for the Corporation.
The truth is, they were driven by disdain and even vengeance, and these are dangerous guides in any undertaking. Whether or not he is guilty of the charge against him - that he biffed a BBC producer - he has a right to be treated fairly as a long-standing servant of the broadcaster.
The BBC’s first mistake was to pull the next three episodes of Top Gear. This was bound to irritate its millions of fans, who had every reason to expect that, whatever differences might have arisen between Clarkson and the BBC, the programmes would be shown as advertised.
This petulant ploy has served only to show how popular Clarkson is. A programme about the Red Arrows shown in the same slot last Sunday attracted only 1.3 million viewers compared with Top Gear’s normal audience of around 5.5 million.
In the meantime, while the Corporation’s investigation into what sounds like a pretty straightforward incident drags on, nearly one million people have signed an online petition calling for the presenter to be reinstated.
The BBC finally lost the plot when someone described as ‘one of the most senior Corporation executives’ told the Mail on Sunday that Clarkson was in need of ‘rehab’, and outrageously compared him with the sex monster Jimmy Savile.
Oisin Tymon, the young producer allegedly hit by Clarkson, was said by this executive to be under pressure in a ‘Savilesque’ way.
BBC executives suspended Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson (left) last week amid claims he punched producer Oisin Tymon (right)
He added that the manner in which the Top Gear host had been defended by ‘high-level politicians’ recalled the arguments once made by such people on behalf of Jimmy Savile.
This comparison of Clarkson with Savile - which, unsurprisingly, has inflamed the petrolhead - is as unhinged as it is malicious. While the BBC is conducting its supposedly even-handed investigation (and why on earth need it take so long?) one of its executives is blackening his name.
Suspicion first fell on the former Labour minister James Purnell, who has found a £295,000-a-year berth at the BBC as its so-called head of strategy. (Shouldn’t that be the Director-General’s job?) However, Mr Purnell and the BBC have categorically denied that it was him.
Another suspect was Danny Cohen, BBC Director of Programmes, who is known to disapprove of Clarkson. Some say he is too circumspect to talk in such a way.
This is the same Danny Cohen who, as Controller of BBC1 in 2011, proposed a tribute to Savile just after his death despite rumours of his proclivities circulating at the BBC.
This 2014 programme, which replaced new Top Gear at BBC2 on 8pm last Sunday, led to the channel getting around 4 million LESS viewers than it would have had if it had still shown Top Gear, the channel's most-watched show
Clarkson has called in his lawyers after James Purnell, the former Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Manchester who now works for the BBC, or somebody linked to his office, allegedly compared him to Jimmy Savile, although Purnell denies it
Maybe it was another senior executive, or someone further down the food chain, who spoke to the Mail on Sunday, repeating what he or she believed was executive orthodoxy. It doesn’t greatly matter. What is important is that someone at the BBC has been prejudicing the outcome of a supposedly neutral investigation by abusing Clarkson.
As it happens, the star is far from being my cup of tea. He often appears loud-mouthed, crude and philistine. I confess I occasionally watch his macho programme, which I suppose makes me a bit of a hypocrite.
But it doesn’t really matter what I think. The point is that Clarkson is fabulously popular. Internationally, Top Gear is the most successful programme the BBC has ever made, earning it tens of millions of pounds a year. It is, in fact, the most-watched factual show on Earth.
What is important is that someone at the BBC has been prejudicing the outcome of a supposedly neutral investigation by abusing Clarkson (pictured)
For the educated, Guardian-reading Lefties who run the BBC - men such as James Purnell, Danny Cohen and, I suspect, Tony Hall, the Director-General - Clarkson’s success is more than they can bear. Whatever qualms I might feel about his general oafishness are multiplied a thousand times in their minds.
He is seen by them as being insufferably Right-wing, politically incorrect and in favour of terrible things such as capitalism. He offends every canon of their caste. The worst thing of all - and the reason they have been forced to put up with him for so long - is that millions of people find him engaging and amusing.
As a result, Clarkson has become that extreme rarity in the BBC - a prominent non-Leftie who has been tolerated because he was too big to sack.
If only Clarkson were a more respectable Tory! (By the way, it was idiotic of his friend David Cameron to jump to his defence.) But he is what he is.
We must defend him on principle - not as someone to whom we are necessarily drawn, but as a victim of discrimination whom BBC executives are trying to stab in the back before they bundle him into a sack and drop him into the Thames.
Of course, the BBC will deny this. They always do. Sometimes, as was the case with Mark Thompson, Director-General from 2004 until 2012, they admit to some long past, historic bias against the Right. But, of course, it doesn’t happen now!
Clarkson is fabulously popular and, internationally, Top Gear is the most successful programme the BBC has ever made. But Hammond and May are refusing to film more episodes without Clarkson
I could supply dozens of examples, but let me give you one from this week. On Tuesday night, BBC2 showed a programme called Suffragettes Forever in which the historian Amanda Vickery suggested Margaret Thatcher had let down the feminist cause.
In a reference to the 1982 Falklands War, she claimed Thatcher ‘did not shrink from personally ordering the sinking of an [Argentinian] troop carrier with the loss of over 300 lives’.
This was a reference to the Belgrano, a cruiser rather than a troop carrier, which was sunk because, in the opinion of British naval commanders, it presented a danger to our ships.
There was immediately a shot of Mrs Thatcher saying: ‘Just rejoice at that news, and congratulate our Forces and marines.’ We were invited to conclude that she had heartlessly said this in response to the sinking of the Belgrano.
But the truth is she spoke these words a week earlier, after British Forces had retaken the island of South Georgia without the loss of any British lives.
One Argentinian died, though Thatcher did not know this when she asked the nation to rejoice at the recapture of British territory which had been illegally seized.
In other words, that great hate figure of the Left, Margaret Thatcher, has been traduced once again by a supposedly reputable historian.
Will Amanda Vickery apologise? Of course not. Or Danny Cohen and Tony Hall? Not a chance. I’d like to see them submit to a Clarkson-style investigation, but they will sail blithely on.
The BBC will never change as it is presently constituted. From now until the election we will see it ludicrously pretending to be even-handed while regularly kicking the Tories (and, of course, Ukip) under the table.
That is why I support Jeremy Clarkson, unlikely hero though he may be. He has been arraigned on what sounds a relatively trivial charge, and while he is notionally being investigated in a fair way, many will feel the BBC has already found him guilty as charged.
The only consolation is that the Corporation has revealed its true colours. Its bigotry has trounced the interests of a large number of licence payers. More people will see that the BBC is not an even playing field.
In 2008, Jonathan Ross and that daft anarchist Russell Brand were temporarily banned by a reluctant BBC after they had made an obscene phone call (later broadcast) to the actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter - surely a more egregious offence than anything Clarkson has done. But both have been indulgently rehabilitated.
My guess is Jeremy Clarkson will be more ruthlessly punished. Even if he survives, he’ll be a marked man. The simple truth is that he is too Right-wing.
But could this whole Top Gear debacle, which has led to the remaining three episodes of the current series being pulled - with Hammond and May refusing to film more episodes without Clarkson - have been caused more by the Left's prejudice and hate than by Clarkson's allegedly hitting a Top Gear producer?
STEPHEN GLOVER: Clarkson's real crime? He represents everything the Left hates yet is HUGELY successful
By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail
19 March 2015
Daily Mail
In pulling the remainder of the series, all the BBC has done is highlight how popular Top Gear is
When BBC executives suspended Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson last week, I doubt they had any idea how toxic the issue would turn out to be for the Corporation.
The truth is, they were driven by disdain and even vengeance, and these are dangerous guides in any undertaking. Whether or not he is guilty of the charge against him - that he biffed a BBC producer - he has a right to be treated fairly as a long-standing servant of the broadcaster.
The BBC’s first mistake was to pull the next three episodes of Top Gear. This was bound to irritate its millions of fans, who had every reason to expect that, whatever differences might have arisen between Clarkson and the BBC, the programmes would be shown as advertised.
This petulant ploy has served only to show how popular Clarkson is. A programme about the Red Arrows shown in the same slot last Sunday attracted only 1.3 million viewers compared with Top Gear’s normal audience of around 5.5 million.
In the meantime, while the Corporation’s investigation into what sounds like a pretty straightforward incident drags on, nearly one million people have signed an online petition calling for the presenter to be reinstated.
The BBC finally lost the plot when someone described as ‘one of the most senior Corporation executives’ told the Mail on Sunday that Clarkson was in need of ‘rehab’, and outrageously compared him with the sex monster Jimmy Savile.
Oisin Tymon, the young producer allegedly hit by Clarkson, was said by this executive to be under pressure in a ‘Savilesque’ way.
BBC executives suspended Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson (left) last week amid claims he punched producer Oisin Tymon (right)
He added that the manner in which the Top Gear host had been defended by ‘high-level politicians’ recalled the arguments once made by such people on behalf of Jimmy Savile.
This comparison of Clarkson with Savile - which, unsurprisingly, has inflamed the petrolhead - is as unhinged as it is malicious. While the BBC is conducting its supposedly even-handed investigation (and why on earth need it take so long?) one of its executives is blackening his name.
Suspicion first fell on the former Labour minister James Purnell, who has found a £295,000-a-year berth at the BBC as its so-called head of strategy. (Shouldn’t that be the Director-General’s job?) However, Mr Purnell and the BBC have categorically denied that it was him.
Another suspect was Danny Cohen, BBC Director of Programmes, who is known to disapprove of Clarkson. Some say he is too circumspect to talk in such a way.
This is the same Danny Cohen who, as Controller of BBC1 in 2011, proposed a tribute to Savile just after his death despite rumours of his proclivities circulating at the BBC.
This 2014 programme, which replaced new Top Gear at BBC2 on 8pm last Sunday, led to the channel getting around 4 million LESS viewers than it would have had if it had still shown Top Gear, the channel's most-watched show
Clarkson has called in his lawyers after James Purnell, the former Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Manchester who now works for the BBC, or somebody linked to his office, allegedly compared him to Jimmy Savile, although Purnell denies it
Maybe it was another senior executive, or someone further down the food chain, who spoke to the Mail on Sunday, repeating what he or she believed was executive orthodoxy. It doesn’t greatly matter. What is important is that someone at the BBC has been prejudicing the outcome of a supposedly neutral investigation by abusing Clarkson.
As it happens, the star is far from being my cup of tea. He often appears loud-mouthed, crude and philistine. I confess I occasionally watch his macho programme, which I suppose makes me a bit of a hypocrite.
But it doesn’t really matter what I think. The point is that Clarkson is fabulously popular. Internationally, Top Gear is the most successful programme the BBC has ever made, earning it tens of millions of pounds a year. It is, in fact, the most-watched factual show on Earth.
What is important is that someone at the BBC has been prejudicing the outcome of a supposedly neutral investigation by abusing Clarkson (pictured)
For the educated, Guardian-reading Lefties who run the BBC - men such as James Purnell, Danny Cohen and, I suspect, Tony Hall, the Director-General - Clarkson’s success is more than they can bear. Whatever qualms I might feel about his general oafishness are multiplied a thousand times in their minds.
He is seen by them as being insufferably Right-wing, politically incorrect and in favour of terrible things such as capitalism. He offends every canon of their caste. The worst thing of all - and the reason they have been forced to put up with him for so long - is that millions of people find him engaging and amusing.
As a result, Clarkson has become that extreme rarity in the BBC - a prominent non-Leftie who has been tolerated because he was too big to sack.
If only Clarkson were a more respectable Tory! (By the way, it was idiotic of his friend David Cameron to jump to his defence.) But he is what he is.
We must defend him on principle - not as someone to whom we are necessarily drawn, but as a victim of discrimination whom BBC executives are trying to stab in the back before they bundle him into a sack and drop him into the Thames.
Of course, the BBC will deny this. They always do. Sometimes, as was the case with Mark Thompson, Director-General from 2004 until 2012, they admit to some long past, historic bias against the Right. But, of course, it doesn’t happen now!
Clarkson is fabulously popular and, internationally, Top Gear is the most successful programme the BBC has ever made. But Hammond and May are refusing to film more episodes without Clarkson
I could supply dozens of examples, but let me give you one from this week. On Tuesday night, BBC2 showed a programme called Suffragettes Forever in which the historian Amanda Vickery suggested Margaret Thatcher had let down the feminist cause.
In a reference to the 1982 Falklands War, she claimed Thatcher ‘did not shrink from personally ordering the sinking of an [Argentinian] troop carrier with the loss of over 300 lives’.
This was a reference to the Belgrano, a cruiser rather than a troop carrier, which was sunk because, in the opinion of British naval commanders, it presented a danger to our ships.
There was immediately a shot of Mrs Thatcher saying: ‘Just rejoice at that news, and congratulate our Forces and marines.’ We were invited to conclude that she had heartlessly said this in response to the sinking of the Belgrano.
But the truth is she spoke these words a week earlier, after British Forces had retaken the island of South Georgia without the loss of any British lives.
One Argentinian died, though Thatcher did not know this when she asked the nation to rejoice at the recapture of British territory which had been illegally seized.
In other words, that great hate figure of the Left, Margaret Thatcher, has been traduced once again by a supposedly reputable historian.
Will Amanda Vickery apologise? Of course not. Or Danny Cohen and Tony Hall? Not a chance. I’d like to see them submit to a Clarkson-style investigation, but they will sail blithely on.
The BBC will never change as it is presently constituted. From now until the election we will see it ludicrously pretending to be even-handed while regularly kicking the Tories (and, of course, Ukip) under the table.
That is why I support Jeremy Clarkson, unlikely hero though he may be. He has been arraigned on what sounds a relatively trivial charge, and while he is notionally being investigated in a fair way, many will feel the BBC has already found him guilty as charged.
The only consolation is that the Corporation has revealed its true colours. Its bigotry has trounced the interests of a large number of licence payers. More people will see that the BBC is not an even playing field.
In 2008, Jonathan Ross and that daft anarchist Russell Brand were temporarily banned by a reluctant BBC after they had made an obscene phone call (later broadcast) to the actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter - surely a more egregious offence than anything Clarkson has done. But both have been indulgently rehabilitated.
My guess is Jeremy Clarkson will be more ruthlessly punished. Even if he survives, he’ll be a marked man. The simple truth is that he is too Right-wing.
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