Jeremy Clarkson is a damn blasted liar

Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Yes, Jah
Ah, he is saying that, ah, he is the first one
Who discover Jamaica
I and I say that
What about the Arawak Indians and the few Black men
Who were ’round here before him?

This is a part of the lyrics of a song by the legendary reggae artist Burning Spear.  My brother-in-law Andrew and I put it on for each other and dance around the room. 

I have had plenty to say about Mr Clarkson in both Animal Wild and Animal Trust, this in the former:

Jeremy Clarkson thinks we should be “proud of our animal welfare state”.  I am still not vegan, but wholeheartedly agree with a poster held by a protestor: “Only vegan products should be allowed to use pictures of happy animals.”  At least let’s not kid ourselves.  Clarkson actually says, “… we need to show them [consumers, my italics] pictures of life for farm animals in the UK.  Lush grass.  Babbling brooks.  Refreshing showers … Kindly farmers.  Well-run slaughterhouses …” 

Part of this kind of defence is often to say that the UK has the highest welfare standards in the world and that it isn’t fair for farmers to compete with those elsewhere where standards are lower.  But it doesn’t stack up …

A newspaper article mentions Clarkson’s upset at the death of three sick ewes he had taken to an abattoir, but in fact they weren’t sick at all.  What they had done wrong was fail to become pregnant.  I stopped watching the show altogether after seeing the dehorning (deforming) of a calf with a hot-iron, albeit with some pain relief (not always by any means the case).  We should not for God’s sake be doing this. 

Also: I have always had issues with Jeremy Clarkson, but I like cars, he writes well and can be very amusing.  I cannot read him any more.  His scapegoating lies, blithely ignoring the science, the research, the reports and papers, about badgers are believed by many, including otherwise intelligent friends of mine.  I would urge anyone who concurs to look into it for themselves.  It’s never been a straightforward issue, but it isn’t that hard to get to the truth.  I talked to PETA about this but they said that if they wrote to the Sunday Times to complain about Clarkson, their letters would simply never be published.  Clarkson also said that he would like to stamp on badgers’ heads and has generally become a poster boy for the British farming industry, denying that factory farming comprises a huge percentage of it. 

Those lies are mostly rather vague but he has really made himself look not just foolish but profoundly deceitful this time.  He writes: “There are, honestly [!], some government regulations I’ve encountered that make sense.  Such as the ban on bee-killing neonicotinoids.  But I believe farmers would have stopped using those on their own.”

The point of course, obvious to anyone who actually follows the news or reads what other people write, is that neonictionoids are in use, right now, precisely as a result of pressure from the farming lobby, to which the government has ceded for the fourth year running.

No doubt Mr Clarkson brings in a great deal of money for the Sunday Times and for himself, but do his employers make no insistence that he fact-check, do some basic research and not … tell lies?  Whether I agreed with him or not in the past, I have at least felt that he wrote with some honesty.  How very disappointing that that is clearly not the case.