BY LUCY CAULKETT
A petitition to have Alan Partridge replace shamed Jeremy Clarkson has been signed by about 15,000 people. Partridge is a fictional character played by Steve Cooper and he is being pushed forward to be the new face of top gear. The petition says that Partridge has had a diverse broadcasting career and has a noted passion for cars. On the other hand, a separate petition to re-instate Clarkson gas received over a million signatures. Clarkson who has famously presented Top Gear for years has recently been suspended for having an altercation with producer for failing to present him with hot food after an hour’s filming in North Yorkshire. Even the prime minister, David Cameron has added his weight to the petitions, claiming his children will be very upset if the former top gear is given the axe permanently.
There is one obvious problem with all these petitions to re-instate Clarkson is that they overlook the seriousness of his offence and gives more weight to his status as a celebrity. This is a very ignorant and shallow perspective for anyone to have, and it does not reflect nicely on the integrity of the Prime Minister, David Cameron who wants to be elected in the next elections. The message being sent is that a man who has shown signs of racism in the past regardless of all the dumb defences that have been given in his defence, and who how now acts violently dissregarding the law in the process, should occupy the platform of a role model whilst behaving like an idiot. All indications are that we as a society are stupidly moving in a direction where status is more important than moral standards. Should we stand for this? I don’t think so somehow. I have always been a fan of Clarkson because his ability to capture our interest is powerful. However, moral values has to be given higher importance than the glitz of fame and power. We have still not recovered from the shock of MP’s abusing young boys and then using their influence to pressurize senior members of the police to cover them up. Now, we have millions of people brushing aside the idiocy and reckless behavior of a BBC presenter and asking for him to keep his job and continue to be perceived as a star. Let us trust the BBC to have more sense and integrity not to plunge their tarnished reputation even to lower lows.
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A clear message needs to go out to the many good citizens of this country, and that is this: nobody is above the law. Nobody is too important or accomplished to be disciplined. A man of his life experience and position should know better and should be able to control himself. We must assume that he would have expected an investigation to follow from his excessive behaviour. If he gets away with it, everyone else will have a right to think they can behave how they like.
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