Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has accused journalists at a regional daily of being responsible for “shocking journalism” in a foul-mouthed Twitter rant.
Clarkson’s comments came after the Liverpool Echo accused him of “insulting” the city in a column in the Sunday Times describing his recent stay there.
In his piece, the TV star stated his trips to Liverpool had always been “extremely memorable”, citing incidents at a hotel involving a girl who had “apparently died”, and a man who had run amok with a knife in a restaurant where he was eating.
He also offered praise for the “very agreeable” features of the city – such as its architecture, museums, hotels and waterfront cafes.
However, the Echo reported on its website: “But then he followed that up with 15 paragraphs of criticism which included the section about hotel service and a story about Tabasco sauce being decanted into a dish by a waitress.
“He ended that section of his column with ‘Ordering Whispering Angel (a brand of wine) in Liverpool is like a Liverpudlian strolling into the Savoy at teatime, in a shellsuit, and demanding seven pints of vodka. He’s going to be shown the door. And I should have been shown the door too.'”
Yorkshire-born Clarkson also criticised “champagne-soaked” southerners who believe they know what’s best for northern cities such as Liverpool.
After the Echo claimed Clarkson had insulted the city he took to Twitter to vent his anger, pictured below.
Former regional journalist Clarkson, who began his career at the Rotherham Advertiser before moving on to the Rochdale Observer and Wolverhampton’s Express & Star, then retweeted posters supporting him.
One described the piece as “rubbish journalism as usual from a poor over priced garbage paper”, while another accused the Echo of being a “bile-spewing militant socialist foghorn”.
The Echo splashed on the controversy yesterday, featuring reaction from Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson, who described Clarkson as an “oaf” and a “buffoon”.
A selection of readers’ comments also featured in a pitcure gallery on the paper’s website, with one accusing him of being a “pompous prat” and another adding he was “stuck in the past”.
However, one poster surmised: “He’s a wind up merchant – that’s his job. He knows that we have a sense of humour and will take it as tongue-in-cheek.”
Echo editor Alistair Machray declined to comment further on the issue.
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The Liverpool Echo has form when it comes to stirring up local feeling against outsiders. Thank God, Clarkson made no reference to Hillsborough or the bile really would have been flying…along with the usual death threats etc. The Echo is like a thin-skinned school bully constantly complaining how its city is being victimized. It isn’t. Most southerners couldn’t find it on a map.
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The Liverpool Echo thought police out in force again
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Telling the truth wouldn’t be as good for clickbait.
Remember the modern mantra people – facts aren’t as good as a headline that boosts the page views.
Oh yeah, Onlooker. Keep the cliches coming.
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Like Liverpool and its people. But can’t stand its crappy paper. Nor can most residents, judging by its huge sales drop over the years.
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I Love Liverpool as a City,and its friendly inhabitants..just as well nobody there reads Private Eye…..Clarksons comments are not meant top be taken seriously..get a life…………
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Can’t understand why the lolloping, galumphing oaf Clarkson gets so much coverage. The man’s a tit – face it.
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Liverpool is a great city, and its residents are, on the whole, lovely. However, the Echo maintains a victim mentality that 99.9 per cent of Scousers find embarrassing.
Of course, the fact it’s owned by Trinity Mirror has nothing to do with that. Oh no. Not at all. Nope.
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With the daily cuts happening to newspapers, they are run on a shoestring, paying peanuts and getting monkeys, UGC content as much as possible, and paying unqualified NCTJ to write stories for pennies…… He’s not too far from the truth on this one.
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I have no time for Clarkson, nor his now rather childish Top Gear programme which long ago ceased to be a show about motoring. However, “Outlooker South East” totally sums up my views about the Liverpool Echo. What was once a great newspaper has become a muckraker – the paper’s antics re Hillsborough have disgusted me.
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What an utterly vile creature Jeremy Clarkson can be By all means have a go at the Echo but no wonder I hear five year olds using four letter words. He is so incredibly crude.
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Just ignore Clarkson and he’ll go away
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Hi onlooker, I would have hoped most southerners could find Liverpool on a map – unless they are small children or have learning difficulties. I had credited southerners with considerably more intelligence. Even the insular and prejudiced ones.
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Oh, come on. Get a life. After all, the man has been to Doncaster, for heaven’s sake. Shake yer shell-suits and get over it.
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Observer50 – your Hillsborough comment is way off-target. Antics? The Echo’s campaign to get to the truth about Hillsborough & to bat on behalf of victims and families – taken up by successive editors over quarter of a century – is one of the stand-out achievements of UK regional journalism of the last 30 years.
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What’s the difference between an Airbus A380 and a Scouser? The Airbus stops whining once in a while.
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JB……”The Echo’s campaign to get to the truth about Hillsborough” Is that the whole truth or the one sided truth that you are commenting on? Bit like the way they have decided to report just parts of what JC said and not everything, but then it would not go with their more than left of centre views would it…….
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Strange how the regional press feels obliged to have a sense of humour failure whenever people make a joke about their town or city. I recall a similar fuss about Clarkson re some comments about Salford.
Laugh it off, simple as that.
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Clarkson does have that marmite quality. People who dislike him seem to do so with an astonishing passion…
However, the Echo has conjured up a controversy for the sole purpose of gaining a few hits.
Internationally famous Jeremy is great clickbait so invent a perceived sleight and hey presto!
With its circulation plummeting, the Echo needs every click it can get.
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Jaded journo. Maybe it is not a sense of humour failure. Just a cynical need to fill space in the mistaken belief it is NEWS! I think the paper under-estimates the intelligence of most of what readers it has left. Always a stupid thing to do as a lot of other papers have found.
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Ironic that it was always an open secret in the North West TM weeklies that if you were a scouser you had no chance of getting a job on the Echo. They had about two, maybe three when I did shifts there. But the siege mentality sells papers and wins it awards year after year.
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JC has always been like that going back to the days as a mainstream journo in his first few years. He was conceited and made nasty cutting jokes about others less fortunate including a man in a wheelchair.
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What everyone seems to ignore in these comments is his foul mouth. Make comments about someone – after all we are a free society – but why this horrible language? This generation generally seems to use foul language everywhere. I even hear eight year olds using the f word all of the time.
Having said I still think he is conceited. He visited our town in an electric car , and when he was searching for somewhere to charge it, he barged around local government offices being rude to the receptionists One lady said he was utterly repulsive. . He even placed heavies on the door and they stopped people going into reception while he was in there.
An awful example
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Old Journo, you’re right of course. Clarkson is an astonishing example of double standards at the BBC. An organisation that’s petrified of being seen unequal or non PC, yet they employ someone who’s made more offensive and racist comments than I can remember. It seems that if your ratings are high enough you can say and do pretty much whatever you want.
Also, anyone who thinks the Falklands 82 number plate was a coincidence, well, I’ve got some magic beans to sell them.
A truly odious man.
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Thank you Jeff Jones. I pay £140.00 odd for my licence. Admittedly I use Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra and Radio 3 but also the TV is included in this amount.
We had the Jonathan Ross debacle and yet I see he is worming his way back. Then Jeremy Clarkson Unfortunately Top Gear makes zillions for the BBC worldwide. I never watch it. They are pariahs.
I love that word ‘odious’ . So apt!
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Top Gear earns a fortune because zillions of people like it.
He swears a lot? FFS.
Conceited? Well yes, probably. I imagine you need a self-confident swagger to do what he does – but so what?
He writes a brilliant column. Yes, he sails close to the wind but I don’t want doldrums.
Keep up the good work Jeremy!
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Describing a Thai person as a ‘slope’ and saying public sector workers who strike should be ‘executed in front of their families’. Describing Mexicans as ‘feckless, lazy and flatulent’. What a cad!
I suppose if you’re popular you can get away with anything, as Hitler found out!
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The Echo ceased being a good newspaper in the early 1990s.
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Clarkson – an absolute shower.
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Couldn’t care less about any of this. However, as Wilde said: there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.
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Jeff Jones – comparing Clarkson with Hitler, even obliquely, is pretty crass and worthy of the pompous, pontificating idiot himself.
Anyway, Hitler only ‘got away with it’ for a while. The same, presumably, applies to annoying television personalities.
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