The hunter becomes the hunted. 

Jeremy Clarkson indulged in some easy clickbait and got bitten by his own spite.

Clarkson writes for the Sun. A newspaper that has repeatedly proven it is only worth being used as paper to collect or remove excrement. Jeremy is both the voice and the champion of his readership. He’s the guy down the pub who sorts out a cheeky out-of-towner and then gets clapped on the back by his mates for doing what they would have done if they had been there. His readers pat him on the back for articulating their grievances in the same “witty” and “bombastic” manner they would have if they had his smarts. They don’t and never will. Clarkson should know better. I’m sure he does know better. He can write kinder and wiser. But where’s the big bucks and safe, cushy retirement fund in that?

Jeremy Clarkson does not get paid to write boring, anodyne columns that are easily ignored and fail to generate media interest. Meghan Markle is the number one target of the planetary-wide, anti-woke movement. Dangling Meghan’s name before the Sun readership is a no-brainer. Even Robert Shaw as Quint didn't have it so easy when he threw bloody chump into the water to attract Jaws. Clarkson’s job is not to challenge or enlighten his readership. His job is to make his readership feel good about themselves. Jeremy’s readership expects him to reassure them that the hot meringue-spittle frothing up on their stuttering lips every time Megan speaks has absolutely nothing to do with racism.

No, according to Clarkson, The Grand Protector Of All Things British As They Should Be, And Always Will Be – their anxiety, their fear, their resentment is nothing of the kind; it’s good old British common sense. Clarkson’s people possess a unique ability that the woke and the foolish lack. His people can see through the well-spoken, fake facade of the suspicious brown person who is trying to ruin their lives on any given day. They see the brown hustler for what they are: a potential thief or mugger or fraudster who is about to move in next door and lower the value of their property, take away the job that should be theirs, marry into their family, mess with the culture of their children, and ask them to respect another religion. Jeremy understands why this is all too much because he is one of them. 

Thank God the Sun still provides a space for one of them to speak. And oh, how well Jeremy speaks for one and all. It’s a bellicose, unforgiving language. The spiteful, nasty, bullying language of damaged, frightened, abandoned boys trying to expose any weakness within another boy - possibly better looking, maybe more popular - by exposing a vulnerability that can’t be altered: “spotty freckles”, “a big nose”, “a heavy lisp”, “a funny accent”, “frizzy hair”, “heavy acne”, “coloured parents”, “poor parents”, “A mo with big tits”  and breaking the rival boy’s spirits with endless ridicule.

Clarkson wrote that he despised Meghan on “a cellular level” and dreamt of the day that the duchess would be made to parade naked through Britain while a crowd chanted “shame” and threw “excrement” at her.” 

This is the private school bully boy’s ultimate wet dream. Substitute the duchess being paraded naked for a gang of private school boys shouting abuse at another boy as he is expelled from school, and then justify the abuse with “every boy my age backed me”, and the source of Clarkson’s poisonous logic appears less convoluted. Clarkson lacked the honesty to declare “everyone who is my age and white and knows what’s what”. 

Clarkson has written, movingly, of being bullied by powerful figures when he attended private school. He has written about having excrement dumped into his lunch box and cleaning toilets with his tongue. It's awful stuff to read and imagine. For a man who has been put through this level of - let's be frank - torture, to recommend another human being be stripped naked and smeared with shit in public is simply bewildering. 

Clarkson also claimed that “everyone who’s my age thinks the same way”. He lacked the honesty to state, “everyone who is my age and white thinks the same way”. 

After knocking out his column, Clarkson, an experienced, talented journalist, would have thought, “that’s a good job done well.” Clarkson was bound to please those who hate Meghan and sure to offend everyone who supports Meghan! Guaranteed clicks all around! What a pro! Yet again, Clarkson would have proved to his paymasters that he was a master of his craft who could leave his followers baying for even more red meat. The not-so-subtle underlying message within the column wasn’t about how much crap should be dumped on Megan but rather how Clarkson should be paid even more for keeping his fans happy.

After hitting Send, Clarkson would have waited for his WhatsApp group to fill with approving messages from his fellow Meghan Haters in the press. The backlash, however, was entirely unexpected. It’s not nice being abused and insulted from every direction (welcome to H and M’s life), and Clarkson couldn’t take the heat. Like all bullies, he can give it but can’t take it.

How does Clarkson come back from this? Should he come back? I don’t believe in cancel culture. Clarkson has probably learned a valuable lesson and is surely the wiser for it. The lesson is simple. When you piss off the mob, apologise quickly and keep your head down. Stay quiet. Allow another news cycle to begin and wait for the mob to find another target to fire upon.