Had Chris Evans and Matt Le Blanc had an idea to make a show
based on cars, challenges and cocking about it would have been brilliant.
Seriously, both are entertaining characters, both have a love of many-horse-powered
crazy horses and both are entirely competent in the art of cocking about. The resulting
hour of television would have made compelling weekly viewing and everybody would
have been be happy. Except for one thing; they tried to take over Top Gear and
Top Gear, like Cerberus at the gates of Hades obeys only one master. Well,
three, actually.
Sacrificed to the gods of political correctness, cast out
like Lucifer and his angels, Clarkson and his left and right hand have returned
to wreak terrible revenge the only way they know how; by taking the viewing
public with them. By making a show that is better, funnier and rich with ridicule
for their former employers. The decision was not taken lightly; the BBC is
often revered by its staff and envied by others but it is in thrall to a mean-spirited
vision of egalitarianism that stifles non-conformity.
The introductory passage of The Grand Tour was full of barbed,
intemperate jibes about new-found freedom and the jocular giving of offence; broadly, JC
and his disciples can mock who they like now, without fear of censure by
anybody except their audience. And their audience shows no sign of switching
off, unlike the response to the much-vaunted relaunch of Top Gear. Back in
Broadcasting House they still don’t realise what they’ve done and stand by
their rigorously tested codes of correctness.
In the old order of the general left-wing, party politics
and those often referred to as ‘the elites’ the way to do business seems to be
to demand obedience then stamp your feet when you don’t get your own way, or
encourage others to stamp them for you. Like the Remain reaction to the
referendum and the Democrat supporters’ reaction to Trump there is an air of
disbelief. No, they are saying, this is not how it is supposed to be. Meanwhile
the rest of us are quietly chuckling away at Jeremy Clarkson likening the tour
to gypsies... but with insurance; the kind of remark that would have the BBC
compliance police in incandescent apoplexy.
So, the latest reaction of the EU old order to the UK’s
forthcoming ‘negotiations’? To show just how far they really don’t grasp what
is going on and declare that they will force a ‘hard Brexit’ as a deterrent to
other populist movements. The very fact they don’t understand the democratic irony
of declaring majority opinion to be wrong would be hilarious, were it not so
worrying. And just to show how little they understand, Labour’s John McDonnell
has judged that the time is right to demand a move to make Britain a republic
and remove the monarchy.
Top Gear is dead. Long live Top Gear Two
Tis the season to be jolly all right. Jeremy Corbyn is
noisily denouncing Trump and Farage and wondering why nobody is listening. The
BBC is busy pushing its winter schedule, trotting out the same old fare and
wondering where its audience has gone. And politics-as-usual is frantically
asking all the wrong people why the plebs voted the wrong way. Maybe if all the
sobbing snowflakes could uncritically enjoy Clarkson, Hammond and May they
would begin to see why the other Hammond and May are now running the country...
