Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear team have won the Culture Warrior vote for "defying the BBC monoculture". This is what Michael Gove had to say about Top Gear a few months ago:
"Over the years, something amazing happened. Not only did Top Gear become addictive viewing, it did so by doing something I don’t think any BBC programme (apart from possibly The Moral Maze) has ever done: by moving to the Right.
Thanks to Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the programme has become a celebration of individual freedom, capitalist excess and private-sector innovation. It is also laced with laddish distrust of political correctness, nannying and Ken Livingstone-style finger-wagging. Some viewers might find its sensibility just a bit too juvenile, even public-schoolish, with the presenters mobbing each other up and addressing each other by their surnames. But I find it totally absorbing."
The other shortlisted nominees were Peter Whittle for establishing the New Culture Forum and presenting Culture Clash, and Douglas Murray for leadership of the new Centre for Social Cohesion.
* More than 8000 people voted on the 2008 ConservativeHome Movement Awards. The previous award announced was One To Watch, which went to James Forsyth.
Hear hear! Any man with a Harrier jet on his lawn has to be pretty sound.
TG is a programme that unashamedly appeals to men's men. Especially because they celebrate on-the-edge racing and risky stunts - a far cry from other cotton-wool BBC programming.
Posted by: Pisaboy | March 14, 2008 at 17:08
Unless he subsequently put a Harrier there, I believe it was an English Electric Lightning he had on his lawn.
Posted by: Bill | March 14, 2008 at 17:47
It’s a programme that celebrates stupidity. Hooray, three men are so incompetent that they manage to burn down a caravan. Fantastic, Jeremy Clarkson drove to the North Pole – proof positive that global warming is a lie.
It hadn't crossed my mind that we might want to proudly call such idiocy "a shift to the right".
Posted by: Armchair General | March 14, 2008 at 17:55
Mr Clarkson certainly strikes a chord with people of a certain political mentality. Very occasionaly certain people in the media have the ability to 'click' with an audience. Jeremy Clarkson et al fully deserve all the respect they are getting for their brand of 'honest' broadcasting.
Posted by: Tony Makara | March 14, 2008 at 19:25
The pathetic way they went trolling for a response on the American 'special' turned me off TG for good.
And as for Hammond, if I'd known it was the way to become famous I'd have written my car off years ago!
Posted by: comstock | March 14, 2008 at 19:45
"It’s a programme that celebrates stupidity. Hooray, three men are so incompetent that they manage to burn down a caravan. Fantastic, Jeremy Clarkson drove to the North Pole – proof positive that global warming is a lie."
People have enjoyed burning and blowing things up for thousands of years. We even have a national day to celebrate doing just this, if people enjoy it, why not?
Clarkson represents many peoples view of conservatism not because of his habitual burning/destruction of caravans, but because of his right as an individual to do so, if you dont see that, i think youre missing the point here.
Driving to North Pole wasnt meant to prove anything about global warming or make any political point scoring, it just set out to be the first people to drive a car to the North Pole, a bit of adventurism (and maybe a little marketing for Toyota)
I think your attitude is was clarkson would deem to be that of a 'miserablist', Just dont watch Braniac Science abuse, many more caravans meet their death :)
Posted by: Conservative Homer | March 14, 2008 at 20:03
Must admit, I'm a 101% fan of Clarkson, if only because he stands out as an example of resistance against the whole enviro-fascist dead hand of regulation which seems to currently paralyze the UK.
He sticks two fingers up at the likes of 'real nappy outreach co-ordinators', "diversity monitors" and other sad quangocrats [always funded at the expense of the taxpayer] - long may he do so!
If Cameron et al want to truly succeed in their quest-for-votes, they should look to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson - embrace the upcoming 18-25 demographic [who want to be able to afford a nice comfortable fast car] and once-and-for-all drive a stake through the heart of tax-the-aspirational Greenpeace Zak-Goldsmith levelling-down-to-carbon-neutrality econonsense.
Astra/Mondeo-man doesn't want to pay £500/year car-tax, believe me!
Posted by: Tanuki | March 14, 2008 at 20:36
"Astra/Mondeo-man doesn't want to pay £500/year car-tax, believe me!"
And no such proposal is on the table.
Posted by: comstock | March 14, 2008 at 20:41
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