Clarkson vs Mandelson

Post by **richard** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:15 pm

Just received this from a reliable source in the UK

The enclosed article by Jeremy Clarkson was in this week's Sunday Times but has since been 'pulled' - probably by the subject of the article, Peter Mandelson. So much for free speech. But poor old manglebum fails to appreciate how the blogsphere works and in no time the article finds itself going viral round the world. Wonderful. Enjoy it - and feel free to pass it on if you did.....

Jeremy Clarkson
Sunday Times 8/11/09

I've given the matter a great deal of thought all week, and I'm afraid I've decided that it's no good putting Peter Mandelson in a prison. I'm afraid he will have to be tied to the front of a van and driven round the country until he isn't alive any more.
He announced last week that middle-class children will simply not be allowed into the country's top universities even if they have 4,000 A-levels, because all the places will be taken by Albanians and guillemots and whatever other stupid bandwagon the conniving idiot has leapt

I hate Peter Mandelson. I hate his fondness for extremely pale blue jeans and I hate that preposterous moustache he used to sport in the days when he didn't bother trying to cover up his left-wing fanaticism. I hate the way he quite literally lords it over us even though he's resigned in disgrace twice, and now holds an important decision-making job for which he was not elected. Mostly, though, I hate him because his one-man war on the bright and the witty and the successful means that half my friends now seem to be taking leave of their senses.

There's talk of emigration in the air. It's everywhere I go. Parties. Work. In the supermarket. My daughter is working herself half to death to get good grades at GSCE and can't see the point because she won't be going to university, because she doesn't have a beak or flippers or a qualification in washing windscreens at the lights. She wonders, often, why we don't live in America .

Then you have the chaps and chapesses who can't stand the constant raids on their wallets and their privacy. They can't understand why they are taxed at 50% on their income and then taxed again for driving into the nation's capital. They can't understand what happened to the hunt for the weapons of mass destruction. They can't understand anything. They see the Highway Wombles in those brand new 4x4s that they paid for, and they see the M4 bus lane and they see the speed cameras and the community support officers and they see the Albanians stealing their wheelbarrows and nothing can be done because it's racist.

And they see Alistair Darling handing over £4,350 of their money to not sort out the banking crisis that he doesn't understand because he's a small-town solicitor, and they see the stupid war on drugs and the war on drink and the war on smoking and the war on hunting and the war on fun and the war on scientists and the obsession with the climate and the price of train fares soaring past £1,000 and the Guardian power-brokers getting uppity about one shot baboon and not uppity at all about all the dead soldiers in Afghanistan, and how they got rid of Blair only to find the lying twerp is now going to come back even more powerful than ever, and they think, "I've had enough of this. I'm off."

It's a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else. But where?

You can't go to France because you need to complete 17 forms in triplicate every time you want to build a greenhouse, and you can't go to Switzerland because you will be reported to your neighbours by the police and subsequently shot in the head if you don't sweep your lawn properly, and you can't go to Italy because you'll soon tire of waking up in the morning to find a horse's head in your bed because you forgot to give a man called Don a bundle of used notes for "organising" a plumber.

You can't go to Australia because it's full of things that will eat you, you can't go to New Zealand because they don't accept anyone who is more than 40 and you can't go to Monte Carlo because they don't accept anyone who has less than 40 mill. And you can't go to Spain because you're not called Del and you weren't involved in the Walthamstow blag. And you can't go to Germany ... because you just can't.

The Caribbean sounds tempting, but there is no work, which means that one day, whether you like it or not, you'll end up like all the other expats, with a nose like a burst beetroot, wondering if it's okay to have a small sharpener at 10 in the morning. And, as I keep explaining to my daughter, we can't go to America because if you catch a cold over there, the health system is designed in such a way that you end up without a house. Or dead.

Canada 's full of people pretending to be French, South Africa 's too risky, Russia 's worse and everywhere else is too full of snow, too full of flies or too full of people who want to cut your head off on the internet. So you can dream all you like about upping sticks and moving to a country that doesn't help itself to half of everything you earn and then spend the money it gets on bus lanes and advertisements about the dangers of salt. But wherever you go you'll wind up an alcoholic or dead or bored or in a cellar, in an orange jumpsuit, gently wetting yourself on the web. All of these things are worse than being persecuted for eating a sandwich at the wheel.

I see no reason to be miserable. Yes, Britain now is worse than it's been for decades, but the lunatics who've made it so ghastly are on their way out. Soon, they will be back in Hackney with their South African nuclear-free peace polenta. And instead the show will be run by a bloke whose dad has a wallpaper shop and possibly, terrifyingly, a twerp in Belgium whose fruitless game of hunt-the-WMD has netted him £15m on the lecture circuit.

So actually I do see a reason to be miserable. Which is why I think it's a good idea to tie Peter Mandelson to a van. Such an act would be cruel and barbaric and inhuman. But it would at least cheer everyone up a bit. onto in the meantime.

Post by **Wanderlust** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:59 pm

Sorry to burst your bubble richard but...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 907747.ece

So no censorship, just another angry rant that was published.

Post by **margaretcarnes** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 7:41 am

So no censorship, just another angry rant that was published.

[/quote]

And rightly so IMO. Clarkson has become something of a role model, and much of what he says needs to be said. Because it's true.

It's certainly time for a touch of reality in the UK University system for example. With foreign - non native English speaking - students either gaining degrees and then going on the dole, or simply not adequately assessed to ensure they can cope with the vocabulary required for the course.
Sorry I can't be more specific but know such cases personally. And it's not to say these foreign sudents aren't extremely bright. But the selection process seems to have lost track of reality, no doubt at the expense of local people.
Just on a similar theme there seems to be trouble brewing in the UK nursing sector now as well, following proposals that all nurses in future will need a degree. No doubt it won't be a degree of common sense or caring either.

Post by **Wanderlust** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:24 am

mags,
I wasn't actually passing comment on the content, just pointing out that another snipe at the government was wide of the mark (by richard or whoever sent him the text). As it stands I think Clarkson is just another journalist who likes the sound of his own voice and will say anything just to be noticed. It is all neat soundbites and rhetoric and while he may appear to be in touch with the common man he is really just a public schoolboy who has never grown up, IMHO of course. Pompous twat is another way of putting it.

Post by **caller** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:55 am

Wanderlust wrote:Pompous twat is another way of putting it.

You looked in the mirror recently?

For Gawds sake, leave Clarkson alone, he's our last bastion of hope!

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:56 am

If he's (Clarkson) even vaguely close with what he's saying then it just seems like it's become such an aweful place, haven't been back for 7-8 years and when I read stuff like this it gives me no inclination to do so, just makes me think it was right to get out when I did. I do agree that the current government has been in power too long and a change would be good for the country, give someone else a go.

Yes, he is pompus at times WL.

I am no fan of Mandleson either, to me he epitomises the pencil-pushing, spineless, supremely indifferent bureaucrat and has a superiority complex to match. Deserves to get flak such as this IMHO.

Post by **caller** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 10:14 am

spitfire wrote:I am no fan of Mandleson either, to me he epitomises the pencil-pushing, spineless, supremely indifferent bureaucrat and has a superiority complex to match. Deserves to get flak such as this IMHO.

You missed something - to add the word 'unelected; before your critique - as is much of our current Govt. to their (lack of) working class roots eternal shame.

Even our new euro foriegn whatever in the euro presidency thing is - a Labour peer and ex-elected MP of course! Although the fact he wasn't a current elected leader, appeared to be one of the things that ruled Blair out (not a bad thing).

I wouldn't be so against this if it meant we got expertise, but we get 'crony' instead.

Post by **Wanderlust** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:03 am

I wasn't in the least trying to defend Mandelson or the current government, just pointing out that both the initial swipe was unjustified (not the one by Clarkson) and that Clarkson is hardly the person who should be speaking for the masses, if you know anything about him, his views or his behaviour.

caller,
I would like to see you justify inferring that I am pompous; all I have done is correct the initial post and query why everyone is saying that Clarkson is so wonderful!

sargeant · Post by **sargeant** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:00 pm

I am con foozzed who is having a go at who

I would join in but cant make head nor tail of it

as i see it in the firing line is
1.... Mandelson
2.... Clarkson
3.... Richard
4.... Wanderlust
5.... The bloke who sent Richard the OP
6.... caller
7.... spitfire

Oh sod it i will stay out of it or you will all pick on me

Post by **STEVE G** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 2:15 pm

I agree with WL; Clarkson acts like a spoilt teenager and his constant whinging is annoying.
I'm working back in the UK for the first time since the early nineties and I can't see why he has anything to complain about. On an international scale it's really a pretty decent place to live.
He gets paid a fortune to prat around in irresponsible vehicles and then spends the rest of his time earning more money writing rants like the above.
Why does he have a problem with things like bus lanes?

Post by **richard** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:10 pm

Sarge

You just posted so you must now be number 8

All we need now is Mr P. He might make it to number 1

Post by **caller** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:17 pm

I think Clarkson is the anti-PC peoples champion and should be designated a national treasure, so there!

Post by **caller** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:30 pm

And I agree with him about the M4 bus lane, which screws up my commute to work. I mean a bus lane on a motorway!!! So the rest of us are packed into 2 lanes whilst the odd charabanc passes by, usually empty, and the folk arriving at H'row get a nice drive into town, and the diplomats as well, as they get immunity from prosecution in their chauffered Mercs and BM's, whilst the ordinary tax paying Joe Public sits and fumes in the overcrowded remaining lanes inching towards their destination!

Its a friggin' joke!

If the Tories wanted a sure fire vote winner in the shires west of London, it would be the promise that this would be scrapped!

Post by **PeteB** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:17 pm

Well,

This one has been interesting.

Just an observation regarding the "pulling" of this article.

It disappeared (for whatever reason) on (I believe) 15th / 16th November.

On checking back, no comments appear to have been posted on 16th, which would seem to bear this out.

Now, back to obscurity and misery (loosely translated - UK)

Peter (was I number 5 ???)

sargeant · Post by **sargeant** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:40 pm

Har DEE Har Har

Now listen up Baldric alias Peter i can spot a cunning plan from a mile of trying to get me involved indeedy

Richards rather sloppy attempt

Sarge

You just posted so you must now be number 8

Failed so now this supposedly innocent question

(was I number 5 ???)

Har DEE Har Har I aint biting

Hua Hin Forum