Know Your Enemy

"Clarkson’s genius lies in his skill at styling himself as the maverick, the unfairly maligned, say-it-like-it-is outsider, when the only way he could be more inside is if he gave himself a proctology exam. He is the Nigel Farage of TV presenters: just as Farage (public-school educated former banker married to a German) presents himself as the man of the European Union-loathing people, so Clarkson styles himself as the decent geezer who has the terrible misfortune to work for the Thought Police – I mean the BBC – who keep trying to tamp him down."

No surprises that Hadley Freeman was swift to sink her teeth into Jeremy Clarkson's derriere. However, it's worth noting that, in making the point that he is hardly the unfairly downtrodden man of the people he professes to be, she was essentially parroting the argument of her fellow Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore, writing in the wake of his previous misdemeanour.

(Thanks to Tim and Mhairi for the links.)