Jeremy Clarkson and his black dog, Didier Dogba, unsurprisingly manage to offend another group of people

The Top Gear presenter is accused of racism. Again.

The presenter, who is thought to be a friend of the Prime Minister, told his followers on the micro-blogging site that he was thinking of standing as an independent at the next general election. (Getty)

Another day, another Jeremy Clarkson Twitter storm.

The Top Gear presenter this morning announced that he was calling his new small black dog, Didier Dogba, after the former Chelsea footballer Didier Drogba.

Cue an onslaught of comments accusing Clarkson of racism, proving that his appetite to stir controversy really knows no bounds. There is obviously nothing like a Bank Holiday Monday to offend a new set of people.

However, he quickly responded to his critics arguing that meant no offence. He didn’t foresee the public reacting this way, naturally.

The presenter is not one to shy away from making a contentious comment. In March, the BBC faced demands to conduct a formal investigation after Clarkson made an alleged racist word to describe an Asian person on Top Gear – using the word “slope”, a derogatory term used for those of Asian descent.

The same month, he posted a poorly-timed tweet, captioning a dangling oxygen mask with “The oxygen masks have deployed. Goodbye everyone.” – just moments after it was announced that, after weeks of searching, the missing Malaysian plane had sunk in the Indian ocean, leaving no survivors. He managed to offend even Piers Morgan, who described the tweet as “utterly shameful”.

In January, he was forced to apologise after tweeting a picture of himself asleep next to a piece of paper reading ‘Gay c**t’, with an arrow pointing to his head – a particularly cerebral joke played by one of his Top Gear co-stars. He has also previously called Gordon Brown a “one-eyed Scottish idiot” and ridiculed Malaysian workers for wearing “leaves for shoes”.

All in a day’s work for television’s very own walking talking offence machine.

Read more: