Sunday 18 December 2011

Jeremy Clarkson in turbocharged attack on Mail



Is this wise? Jeremy Clarkson has launched an all out attack on the Daily Mail and its reporters in his Sunday Times column.

It begins: "Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you can neither see nor feel the monster that’s attacking you?

"But you know it’s there all right, and unless you can get away, it’s going to gobble you up, burn your house down and sell your children for medical experiments.

"Well, let me tell you, such a creature exists in real life. It’s called the Daily Mail.

"Like a Terminator, it doesn’t know right from wrong. You can’t reason with it.

"It has no sense of remorse or humility. It’s fuelled by hatred. It hates people who are successful. It hates people who are not. It hates people who are fat just as much as it hates people who are thin. It hates everybody. But for some reason it seems especially to hate me."

Commenting on the coverage he was given for his satirical comments on The One Show about shooting striking public sector workers, Clarkson adds: "The worst, though, came from the Mail. It said that I was a mental, that my mother had been extremely right-wing and that my parents had had little empathy with those less fortunate than themselves. Quite what my poor old mum had done to deserve this after years of unpaid public service, I’m not entirely sure.

"But that’s the trouble with the Mail. There are many creatures on this earth that behave in an unusual way. We can’t explain how pigeons find their houses from thousands of miles away or how salmon can find the very spot where they were born. But nothing in the kingdom of nature is quite so unfathomable as a Mail reporter.

"They look human. They have opposable thumbs and are capable of catching buses. But they don’t have the capacity for reason. You can tell them what happened. You can prove it. But it will make no difference."

Clarkson even suggests that it should have been the Mail that was closed down rather than the News of the World. He writes: "Last week Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, was asked by an MP if I was a luxury the corporation could not afford. In the Daily Mail this became a statement. 'Jeremy Clarkson is a luxury the BBC cannot afford.' Somehow it had turned a question into a fact. I really do believe that in the whole furore over press standards the wrong newspaper has been closed down."

I know it's Christmas but I can't imagine the Mail taking this assault lying down. Retaliation may be swift.

  • The Sunday Times is behind a paywall

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Takes one to know one!

Anonymous said...

Amazingly when it comes to slagging off the Daily Fail I wholeheartedly agree with JC. The Daily Fail is a steaming pile of dog shit.

Bill Kruse said...

He's quite right about the Mail, it's an appalling rag. It should have been shut down long ago.

Anonymous said...

He's right. I while away otherwise dull periods of the day by posting rational, intellectual comments on their "news" stories to see how many of their readers fly into a rabid rage. Normally, it's quite a few. Especially the wimmen.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see Jeremy fighting back!!
You can't take what the papers publish seriously. They do enjoy negative press, it brings people and everyone loves a controversy and they like to twist the facts around a bit. I wish I could view the column he wrote, but we're not allowed to view the SUN here in the states.
Now I just wish everyone would just let it go! Move on now.

Anonymous said...

My family was subjected to its lies and mis-quotes last week.
How easy to destroy a young life just to get sales!!
My god I feel sorry for the people who think that all they write is gospel, how sad.
I feel for the many in the public eye who put up with this nonsense on a regular basis.
For society in general "The Daily Fail"

Danny said...

In a battle between Jeremy Clarkson and the Mail I'm on JC's side every time. To be honest, I'd be on the same side of just about anyone versus the Mail.

JVK said...

I don't approve of JC wanking over big engines in his daft programme and joking that people should be shot, but the Mail is consistently horrible. I am sorry for its readers who know no better.

TheWordNerd said...

JC is completely right... The Daily MAil is nothing but a bunch of lonely old men wanking off with simutaneously condemning hate onto the world via a computer, a mouse, a keyboard and the unstoppable wrath of the media against every moving, breathing entity,