The enclosed article by Jeremy Clarkson was in last 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 enjoyed it.....



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 upon.

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.

F*ckin' ay!

Where do I start?

A) I can say whatever I want because I don't live there and therefore my opinion doesn't count anyways.

B) People have been complaining about Britain since I was born. And obviously before that. Some of my relatives didn't like it very much or they wouldn't have come here.

C) What exactly is that racist idiot doing to improve his own country? News flash: there were no good old days.

ps. we're too boring to let a person like JC in. You can have him. I recommend he move to the country and never pick up a newspaper or watch TV again. He'll feel better.

[Edited on 3/2/10 by RK]

[Edited on 3/2/10 by RK]

I should like to point out that I neither agree nor disagree with Mr Clarkson's views - on many fronts I think he's an idiot - but I do agree with him about Peter Mandleson (a.k.a. "Prince of Darkness" ).


[Edited on 4/2/10 by David Jenkins]

RK - that is such a *French* thing to say

I posted that diatribe only because it's a splendid example of a rant - on reflection, if anyone thinks that it's content is offensive or inappropriate for this forum (not picking on RK here) then please let me know by U2U. If it does offend then I'll delete the thread.

If a silly row starts then I'll also delete the thread!

Life's too short to get stressed about anything that Clarkson says or writes...

I think what Clarkson writes and says is rubbish, but I enjoyed the article!

Excellent. And while I agree Clarkson can be a prat at times I can in no way disagree with anything in that article.

Mr C does talk a load of c*ap, however much of what he says is actually correct or at least based on fact - something which seems to have escaped this current government long ago!
I se no reason to delete this thread - anyone that takes that rant as being offensive is taking him far too seriously!

He writes for entertainment purposes. However, in some small way, I think he says those things because he is, deep down, a patriot, and hates seeing his country ruined. But of course, this is what all people my age and older think. This attitude of the "world is going to hell" has been around quite a while, and I find it reassuring that it isn't just me, even if I don't have first hand knowledge of his subject this time around.

In more important news, I don't know what happens if you can't get your car inspected (in my province - a mostly French speaking one, I may add) within the government imposed one month from issue of the VIN. Maybe my car just evaporates, which would be nice, because at least it would free up some garage space. Maybe the world is just evolving as it should.

Imo the country started going to hell when people started talking through their noses and everyone started pandering to them.

When it comes to the point where you're not allowed to ask for people suitable for the job, you're having to fight to make companies keep their side of the contracts they keep throwing at you and you can't get an education because the government would rather pay you tax credits until you die than loan you money to help you get a better job, well I start to wonder.

quote:

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Originally posted by andyharding
Excellent. And while I agree Clarkson can be a prat at times I can in no way disagree with anything in that article.

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This country is geared up 100% to cater for the minorities.

Does not make him or me racist,homophobic or anything else for that matter. Its a display of frustration with a system which operates back to front.

The lady who lives next door to the Pikey (yes they are !)camp in .....


Which was built over the bank holiday weekend actually said....

"It appears because the other side are deemed an ethnic minority they have rights, yet I do not !"


Put the boot on the other foot and try building a nice bungalow at the bottom of your garden without planning permission, the local ripa enforced surveillance trained stasi will be at your door 9am Monday morning, along with the bulldozer.


The law abiding folk who occassionally slip up and break the law, are not allowed to be given advice, they are now persecuted as its good for the Home office bean counting team.

The flip side of Clarkson's rant compared to mine is he writes professionally for a national broadsheet, I do not.

So I understand why he has been gagged as the muesli eating, hairy toed sandal wearing / bearded folk will complain.


The UK has ground to a halt because of the fear of the following things..

Health & Safety
Human Rights act


Thanks for listening

Health and Safety people rule the world, based on what private insurance companies do. THEY are the real villains in western society nowadays.

Nobody will make a decision in the UK based around H&S/HR & litigation.

Its a joke.


There is a total willingness in the UK to cease whatever it may be you were doing , down tools and quote H&S as the reason.

That's true, no-one's allowed to die or get injured. Reminds me of "No Surprises"

"I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide
With no alarms and no surprises"

I remember as a child that falling over hurts, and I learnt to not fall over. It's the small things like this that stop people learning the consequences of their actions. By this manner we could blame H&S on the rise of kids getting beer'd up (along with possible other substances) and beating the living hell out of people (worst case scenario I admit)

In the Uk if there are roadworks , there can be miles and miles of single lane, 40,000 cones , average speed cameras set @ 50mph, and 6 workmen drinking tea.

Compare that to road building in Spain, miles and miles of new road, 6 cones and three hundred men working.

We have lost it here completely.

Everytime I go to Spain the roads which are already good get better.

Here we are told it could take up to ten years to catch up with the potholed roads caused by the recent winter we have had.

marvelous !

I like JC, right or wrong he will say as he sees fit as mentioned above, whilst there is entertainment value in his writing, there is also underlying patriotism and that I applaud.

I'd put him as PM in a shot, how much worse could he be

"Here we are told it could take up to ten years to catch up with the potholed roads caused by the recent winter we have had."

Whilst the gaols are full of able bodied parasites sitting on their arses drinking tea.
What's wrong with road gangs like the Yanks have? Make the buggers earn their keep!

quote:

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Originally posted by Confused but excited.
"Here we are told it could take up to ten years to catch up with the potholed roads caused by the recent winter we have had."

Whilst the gaols are full of able bodied parasites sitting on their arses drinking tea.
What's wrong with road gangs like the Yanks have? Make the buggers earn their keep!

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I use Spain as an example as I go there reasonably often...

Northern end to be exact, there just does not appear to be any dross loitering about anywhere you go.

I see them waiting at the local court in the morning, which is good ! But other than that you dont see them.

The cops are much more obvious, traffic cops on the main roads doing road checks, local community cops, and in the bigger towns military looking blokes in black with bigger guns than the rest of them.

If you see a cop here, they are generally about 12 and go zipping past with the blues on, the police have lost the art of speaking to the public again.

And we can all point out folk who stay at home and dont work, Im not talking about the folk who cannot work through ill health Im talking the dross again.

There are thousands upon thousands of them.

I just feel the UK is never going to recover from this position its in now, the dross have the upper hand with the legal system.

Im Off for some more diazapam & cider, sitting on the settee in the garden, while the bairns play with their air rifles, and I smoke really long tabs to help my asthma.