Jeremy Clarkson news: Ex-Top Gear host avoids police probe over The Sun Meghan Markle article

Column received record number of Ipso complaints as politicians demand answers from The Sun

Harry and Meghan Volume II trailer

Jeremy Clarkson will remain the host on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? “at the moment”, ITV boss Kevin Lygo has confirmed.

Lygo criticised the 62-year-old presenter’s comments about Meghan Markle, describing his tirade as “awful”.

In an op-ed published by The Sun on Friday (16 December), Clarkson wrote that he dreamt of the day Markle would be made to parade naked through Britain while the crowd chanted “shame” and threw “excrement” at her.

Clarkson claimed that “everyone who’s my age thinks the same way”.

The Sun has now removed Clarkson’s comment piece from its website. “In light of Jeremy Clarkson’s tweet he has asked us to take last week’s column down,” the page now reads.

More than 60 cross-party MPs have written to The Sun’s editor to demand an apology and “action taken” against Clarkson. The SNP’s shadow culture minister also called for Clarkson to be banned from TV altogether.

Ipso confirmed on Tuesday 20 December that it had received over 17,500 complaints about the presenter’s column, more than the total it received in 2021.

Key points

• ITV boss says Clarkson to remain Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host 'for the moment'
• What Clarkson said
• More than 60 MPs complain to The Sun editor
• Jeremy Clarkson’s Meghan Markle column breaks Ipso complaints record

[21 December 2022 15:19 · Louis Chilton]

SNP politician John Nicolson has shared some of the abusive messages he’s received over the past day after calling for ITV to get rid of Clarkson.

He’s not the only person to have reportedly suffered online abuse over the subject – Carol Vorderman said she received “a lot of abuse” after criticising the ex-Top Gear host.

[21 December 2022 15:49 · Louis Chilton]

A reminder of what exactly it was Nicolson said.

“Following grotesque comments made about the First Minster and The Duchess of Sussex, I do not believe Jeremy Clarkson should be allowed back on our screens. I’ve written to the Chief Executive of ITV.”

Read the full story:

[21 December 2022 16:30 · Louis Chilton]

Going to re-share some of the main stories over the past day or so.

Firstly, the news that Clarkson’s story had broken the record for the number of complaints lodged to Ipso, the independent press standards organisation.

[21 December 2022 17:00 · Louis Chilton]

Piers Morgan weighed in on the issue with what many might characterise as a predictable response.

[21 December 2022 17:30 · Louis Chilton]

The boss of ITV confirmed that Clarkson would not be removed from his post as presenter of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

He did, however, condemn Clarkson’s article in strong terms.

[21 December 2022 18:00 · Louis Chilton]

More than 60 MPs have written to The Sun complaining about the article.

[21 December 2022 18:30 · Louis Chilton]

Police have confirmed that Clarkson is not going to face investigation over the article, despite calls from some critics to probe it as hate speech.

[21 December 2022 19:00 · Inga Parkel]

James O’Brien says Clarkson’s ‘gotta go’ on new podcast episode

James O’Brien thinks Clarkson’s “gotta go” after his “disgusting” op-ed against Markle.

Despite not normally buying into “that kind of response to off-air behaviour having on-air consequences”, the radio presenter said he believes “society demands standards”.

Therefore, “I don’t think they can keep him on the job”, O’Brien said on Wednesday’s (21 December) episode of his “The Whole Show” podcast.

“Pretty much everybody (except the weirdest people on the planet) agrees that it was absolutely disgusting.”

[21 December 2022 19:30 · Inga Parkel]

Writer Joyce Carol Oates says Clarkson should be taken by ‘his word'

Joyce Carol Oates, the writer who penned 2000 historical fiction novel Blonde, about Marilyn Monroe, believe we should take Clarkson “at his word”.

“When an individual like Jeremy Clarkson admits publicly to a ‘cellular hatred’ of a Black woman,” she wrote on Twitter, “we should take him at his word: racism is primitive, irrational, sub-human & sub-ethical emotional violence directed against someone perceived as ‘other’.”

[21 December 2022 20:10 · Inga Parkel]

Emily Clarkson called out media’s ‘inhumane’ treatment of Markle days before her father’s op-ed

Days before Jeremy Clarkson’s op-ed was published on 16 December, his daughter Emily had condemned the media’s “inhumane” treatment of Markle.

On 14 December, alongside a screenshot of a publication blurb which read, “Harry and Meghan release yet another Netflix trailer for their show waging war on the Palace ahead of new three episodes dropping TOMORROW”, Emily wrote a lengthy caption.

“My steadfast defence of them has never been of the individuals I don’t know, rather of two people who have, objectively, been treated APPALLINGLY,” she said.

“It’s bullying on a mass scale,” Emily continued. “I feel DEEP discomfort with our lack of humanity towards these two people.”

Following the publication of Clarkson’s column, she spoke out against her father, standing against “everything my father wrote”.

Read more

Emily Clarkson Jeremy Clarkson (Instagram, Getty)

Jeremy Clarkson’s daughter speaks out against Meghan Markle rant

‘I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred,’ said podcast host