Clarksongate: Can't anyone take a joke anymore?

Labour's Jon Trickett has tonight demanded that Top Gear Presenter Jeremy Clarkson apologise for telling BBC One Show Viewers that he'd have all strikes "shot in front of their families".

I suppose it's a reasonable request if it wasn't a politician using their party's press office to demand it, but more head scratchingly strange is the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister's demand that the Prime Minister disassociates himself with the comments because they have sometimes had dinner together.

This is precisely the reason why the public hold politicians in such contempt. Please don't see this as an attack against Mr Trickett, a fine politician, but I do feel the release is a little misjudged.

We're all just a bit tired (I think) of Tory politicians blaming Labour for everything, and Labour politicians blaming Tories for everything. This really is the politics of the playground, and it needs to stop.

But never in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought that Labour (or vicer versa by the way) could possibly blame tories in effect for the JOKING comments of a TV pundit.

And on the comments... I think a lot of people will have sympathy with the strikers. I could have misjudged the feeling in the coutnry, but I feel that the general public feel sorry for public sector workers - particularly after learning that they would face a 1% pay rise from 2013 - 15 after a two year pay freeze at a time when the RPI and CPI are pushing food and day to day bills through the roof. But come on people, Clarkson was joking. That's what he does. This is a man who has made a very successful career out of joking one liners, and putting things in an amusing way. Does he REALLY want strikers to be shot? I doubt it. So why on earth would anyone act as if he did if not to score cheap political points?

All parties are equal of this childish behaviour, so just stop it, alright?


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