Jeremy Clarkson’s One Show rant: complaints top 31,000
This article was written by John Plunkett, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 5th December 2011 11.44 UTC
Jeremy Clarkson’s appearance on BBC1′s The One Show is on course to be one of the most complained-about TV shows of all time after the number of complaints topped 31,000.
The Top Gear presenter provoked a viewer furore with his joke that striking public sector workers should be “executed in front of their families”.
The latest update on the number of complaints on Monday morning, 31,057, was 10,000 up on the last published figure of 21,000 on Friday morning.
Clarkson provoked further controversy by describing people who kill themselves by jumping under trains as “selfish”.
He first commented on this issue during his The One Show appearance on Wednesday, but this was overshadowed by his joke that striking public sector workers should be “executed in front of their families”.
Clarkson expanded on his comment about people who commit suicide in his newspaper column in the Sun on Saturday and was criticised by mental health charities as “extraordinarily tasteless”.
The BBC said it had no further comment to make about Clarkson’s suicide remarks, on Wednesday’s edition of BBC1 show hosted by Matt Baker and Alex Jones.
It had nothing further to add to his comments on The One Show beyond an updated complaints figure.
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