Only some of this is about Jeremy Clarkson

Try to forget one man and his silly comments.

This was going to be a post about Jeremy Clarkson. About how I like Clarkson: as right-wing writers go, he’s rather good. (He’s no PJ O’Rourke, no matter how desperately hard he tries, but he makes me chuckle. I hereby ask for my “The Left” membership card to be rescinded immediately.)

This isn’t a case of: “First they came for the Clarksons, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a jowly denim-clad petrolhead oaf roaring half-baked grandstanding silliness to needle-dicked losers who like cars.” This is just a silly man saying silly things, exaggerating them to make them sound sillier.

Wouldn’t you know it, he’s got a book out as well; I’m sure this entirely coincidental controversy might shift a few units. The more people get outraged, the more of them will probably be sold, and the more money he’ll make. See how Clarkson nourishes himself by licking your salt tears of outrage; see how your hate has made him powerful.

I was going to expand on all of that, but then I saw the news, and Clarkson’s comments being the lead item on the news, and it depressed me entirely. Thousands upon thousands of people all over the country got together yesterday to battle against the Government, yet because one person says some tedious trolling deliberately controversial load of old guff to flog a few books, that’s shifted the entire focus of public debate. Doesn’t that depress you?

This suits The Right (well, if they can use capitals and huge overgeneralisations, I don’t see why I can’t, so I’m using “The Right” to mean “everyone I don’t like, from Ronald Reagan to Ronald McDonald, tainting everyone with the actions of the people I dislike the most”) very well indeed. They might like to make the feeble suggestion that 30 November was a damp squib, but it wasn’t — it was popular, powerful and impressive.

I was out there on the picket lines, seeing the numbers at rallies and hearing about the passionate reasons why moderate workers had decided to take action. It wasn’t because some nasty spectral bully in charge of their union had forced them into it; it was because they were fed up with what had been handed out to them, and why the public sector had been scapegoated and picked on by the Coalition to pay extra pensions that wouldn’t even go into their pension pots.

These people weren’t the usual leftie troublemakers stirring up disaffected workers; these were hardworking taxpayers who’d had enough of being squeezed dry.

These were men and women who simply did not buy the Government’s line that we were all going to have to do our bit in these troubled times — and I heard time and time again the comparison made between the pensions of those who had caused this crisis, those MPs who had failed their country, and those who were now being targeted as having ‘gold-plated’ futures. People aren’t buying the Coalition’s line, and that should be of real concern to them; it’s not just the strikers and their natural sympathisers who have worked that out, either.

I had written, before 30 November, that the strikes risked drawing a wedge between similarly badly-treated groups of private and public sector workers unless they could appeal to as broad a range of people as possible. Looking at it now, I don’t think those fears were justified. I heard many speakers and union members talking about the need to make private sector pensions fairer, the need for private and public sector workers to unite against the common enemy in Government, and the desire to ensure this didn’t become a conflict between groups of employees.

Let’s focus on that. Let’s focus on the success of 30 November, and what it means for the future. The public don’t trust the Government, despite the cheerleading for the Tory agenda and the hissing at the strikers from the usual sections of the press. Striking might upset some, but it has the support of many. Forget one man and his silly comments — the debate about Clarkson is just what the Government would like to happen, to draw attention away from their miserably poor attempts to demonise strikers.

Don’t let them get away with it. Otherwise, you should be taken outside and shot in front of your kids.