Red Top Wins Over Red Top

[douglas9401]

Well thank goodness this nonsense is finally put to bed and Meghan can walk among us unhindered again.

Mr Clarkson on the other hand deserves a knighthood for services to humourous writing but maybe that's for another day.

The great and the good have had their moment to be outraged and can now carry on sanitising life for the rest of us with their sniffy attitudes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64489083

[Zacs-Master]

‘But the watchdog rejected complaints that the piece was discriminatory on the grounds of race, inaccurate or sought to harass the duchess’

Excellent. Carry on, Jezza.

[Old_Geezer]

While accepting the article was clumsily written, and could, as he admitted, be interpreted as if he were calling for actions to actually be made against her, I think the regulators are way overstating when they claim sexism. The sex of the individual wasn't used in any way. She is who she is. The claimed sexism is probably just in the minds of the regulators, and others who wish to find wherever they can.

[Ellipsis]

Would JC have said the same article about a man ... Harry, for example?

No. In his witty little harmless article, the fact that it was a woman - and JC is a man - was central. It wouldn't have been remotely as funny - for him or his readers - if he was talking about a man.

He lost the plot, and he knows it.

[naomi24]

Complete and utter tosh - but par for the course.

[douglas9401]

Six months to arrive at this nonsense.

Nice work if you can get it but imagine the stress, scared to speak until the exact words have been checked by a colleague whose aim in life is to get you booted off the gravy train of BS making sure of their own position.

[barry1010]

Clarkson likes to be controversial, he thinks he is being 'edgy'. He doesn't always get the reaction he hoped for. Par for the course, he knew exactly what he was doing

[Gromit]

A record number of complaints.
The author admits it was badly written.
The newspaper accepts the judgement.

And ABs usual apologists are calling foul and rejecting the judgement.

[douglas9401]

Not the judgement, Gromit, the judges and their (your?) po-faced, wide-eyed innocent view of the world

The man is paid to write, he wrote slightly the wrong thing, he was chastised, he said sorry, it wasn't good enough for ginger pubes and his current wife.

[Ellipsis]

The complaint was made by The Fawcett Society and The WILDE Foundation, not "ginger pubes and his current wife".

https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/
https://www.wildeinternationalnetwork.org.uk/

[douglas9401]

I was referencing the apology, ellipsis, not the complaint.

[Ellipsis]

Thanks for the clarification. Remember that he also said that he hated Meghan "on a cellular level", and compared his hatred with his feelings towards Nicola Sturgeon and Rose West. "Oh, sorry I said I hated you. Sorry I lumped you in with two other women, Nicola Sturgeon and Rose West. Sorry I wanted you to be paraded naked through the streets, with an audience throwing excrement at you. Sorry all that was written in The Sun, supposedly a national newspaper, that pays me as supposedly a journalist."

I'm not surprised that their "spokesperson dismissed that apology, accusing the paper of profiting and exploiting 'hate, violence and misogyny'" at the time - are you?!

[Old_Geezer]

Again gender isn't relevant. Not for Nicola nor for Rose. And he could have easily written about with a male subject; but it smacks of control if one insists one can only criticise one's own gender. Again, it's all in the mind of the accusers.

[Ellipsis]

> gender isn't relevant ... Again, it's all in the mind of the accusers.

And in IPSO, the press regulator ... who ruled that the article was sexist.

[Spungle]

What a bunch of nutters. Clarkson wrote about a dream. Label it however you want, but it seems a tad hypocritical to feign outrage at this, and not at the way the monarchy had been belittled, attacked, undermined and despised by MM and her hapless husband.

[Gromit]

IPSO is a self regulatory organisation set up to handle complaints about UK newspapers and magazines. It is made up of newspaper editors, executives, and others and is independent .
Of the 12 members on their complaints committee ( who found Clarkson’s article sexist), 9 are men and 3 are women.

[Deskdiary]

IPSO finding it sexist doesn't necessarily make it so.

It wasn't sexist.

[tomus42]

// It wasn't sexist //

You saying it wasn't sexist doesn't necessarily make it so.

I'm not sure what the point of the enquiry was other than to give Jeremy another opportunity to make a sarcastic apology. If they could fine him then he might genuinely feel a bit of regret.

[andy-hughes]

I can see that, without the GOT reference, to give the image context, it does come across as a really nasty image.

As has been advised, Mr Clarkson is seen as a professional 'plain speaker' - which means he gets to be rude to strangers for money.

Like other 'plain speakers', and the excerable Katie Hopkins comes to mind, such people tend to forget the simple filters of courtesy and respect that the rest of us operate as part of being civilised adults, and they overstep and receive sanctions.

Ms Hopkins' inability to climb down and apologise ended up costing her her house and 'career', Mr Clarkson has got off lightly it seems.

[naomi24]

I like Jeremy.

[Ellipsis]

I like Jeremy too, for the most part, but that doesn't give him a free pass. He made a big mistake here, as he said so himself.