Yesterday, Jeremy Clarkson, the journalist famous for presenting the BBC's Top Gear, made a remark that has set his name trending on the web, and apparently inflamed the vast majority of the people who feel duty bound to set up their own bonfire vigils of outrage whenever they see the first sign of smoke: politicians, tweeters, and the press offices of organisations like Unison, the public sector union. But there is no fire here, and even his defenders seem to have misinterpreted what he was doing.
The remark that has triggered the earnest outrage was a suggestion that yesterday's strikers should not only be "shot", but "in front of their families". Cue the usual suspects: Unison calling for his sacking; BBC-bashing from all shades of the political spectrum; and a range of tabloids spinning the situation for all it is worth.
There has been some good push-back against the backlash, notable from the Spectator, politics.co.uk, and the blog Heresy Corner. These rightly lament the death of British black humour (which Clarkson they say was clearly exercising), and despair at the rise of 'the earnest literalism that characterises so much of officialdom in modern Britain'.
Yet even these writers in Clarkson's column seem to have missed the joke; even they appear to have missed the context.
Clarkson was obviously not serious, as anyone who has actually seen his full comments will realise. But the humour was not in saying something outrageous or hyperbolic for its own sake. What he was actually pillorying was the BBC's requirement to 'balance' every opinion, regardless of whose it is.
Clarkson actually began by suggesting that he thought the strikes were wonderful, but adding a twist in the tail (he is employed largely because people find him funny, after all) by saying that this is only because London is less gridlocked while the public sector is striking. He is the front man of a program about driving, after all.
He then says this: "We have to balance it though, don't we? As this is the BBC", to which the presenters response "yes". It is at this point that he makes the infamous comment 'frankly I'd have them all shot' (referring to the strikers). But look closely. It is evident he is adopting a different persona for comedic effect as he says this, shifting his weight before he says it. He is role-playing, in order to satirise the BBC's need for 'balance'. To balance, in this case, his expressed opinion that the strikes are a good thing.
It looks like this has been missed by even his defenders. Probably because he transitions into this persona with barely a pause, and delivers the lines in complete dead-pan. And so unless you are paying close attention, it is perhaps not wholly obvious. But it is there. He is clearly ribbing the BBC for their anxiety about everything being 'balanced'. That is it. There is nothing else to see here. End of story.
It is worth noting that I can't stand Clarkson. Not because he is remotely offensive (public 'outrage' at such 'incidents' tends to amount to some attention-seeking public figure or humourless spokesman claiming to speak on other peoples' behalf), but because his attempts at humour (whether offensive or not) are just too dull, blokey and obvious for my taste. And I have no interest in cars. Top Gear is the quintessential British TV show: middle aged men being filmed in the middle of March driving in the middle lane of a motorway somewhere near Middlesborough. I can think of better ways to spend an evening.