You may have seen where Jeremy Clarkson* and his oafish Top Gear colleagues got in trouble for insulting Mexico and Mexicans. They're flatulent, overweight and lazy, apparently. (The Mexicans, that is, not Jeremy et al). The Mexican ambassador in London, who possibly needs to get out more, happened to be watching Top Gear, and was unsurprisingly a bit narked. He complained to the BBC, who have duly apologised.
But what's this? Apparently the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, is about to spring to Clarkson's defence. In a speech this coming week Phillips, who has never before shown even the slightest sign of having a sense of humour, "will say that while “the Top Gear Tendency” might appear to some as juvenile and vulgar, Clarkson and his fellow presenters are “brilliant” talents whose jokes entertain millions. Rather than suing Top Gear, the “PC lobby” should focus on the real causes of discrimination".
This remarkable intervention raises several important questions:
- Do we all get to decide which groups it's OK to insult and which it isn't, or do we have to let Trevor Phillips make those decisions? Would he be so cavalier about insulting Mexicans if some of them wore suicide vests?
- Do we all get to decide who's "brilliant" and who isn't, or once again, do we have to let Trevor do that? After all, Roy "Chubby" Brown and Jim Davidson are loathsomely misogynistic and racist, but some people think they're funny, so does that make it all right?
And the most obvious question of all:
- If the Government is so assiduously chasing cost savings, how come Trevor Phillips and his pals are still on the public payroll? Because it seems to me that he's just blown the whistle on his whole fraudulent enterprise.
(* You could be forgiven for assuming Clarkson was the Antichrist, except that we all know that's James Blunt).
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