Outrageous Outrage

Gosh! Jeremy Clarkson – a muckle tube, for what it’s worth – said something silly/stupid/offensive/boring and now everyone’s twittering that he must be sacked or arrested or hung, drawn and quartered. Who cares? Plenty of people, it seems, but the mustering of outrage is itself becoming an outrageous feature of British life. We are becoming rather too American, in this regard. This, unlike Clarkson being Clarkson, is no hyperbole. I was going to despair some more about all this but, mercifully, Heresy Corner has said it all for me. Unison, clwons and clods as ever, are demanding “action” or something. Grim stuff:

It’s all there. The presumption that the union boss is capable of reading the minds of millions of people, many of whom – even if they did go on strike – will have been laughing. There’s the “think-of-the-children” kneejerk – for we all know that children are incapable of recognising the nuances of English idiom. There’s the hysterical characterisation of Clarkson’s words, quite bereft of their context – “aggressive”, “disgusting”, “unbelievable abuse.” There’s the sentimental invocation of selfless, low-paid public employees – “they save others’ lives on a daily basis, they care for the sick, the vulnerable, the elderly” (some do, but others are employed sending out diversity monitoring questionnaires). There’s the demand for instant dismissal.

Above all, there’s the refusal to view things in any kind of proportion, the earnest literalism that characterises so much of officialdom in modern Britain. By rights Prentis (or his press officer) should be taken out and hung, for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

UPDATE: Jesus wept, now the politicians are piling in. Ed Miliband, never knowingly out-muppeted, declares Clarkson’s suggestion strikers should be shot “disgusting and disgraceful”. Get a grip. And a sodding life.

UPDATE 2: Love and Garbage is on point too.