Jeremy Clarkson’s time has come

It’s a reasonable bet that if Jeremy Clarkson stood for prime minister tomorrow, he’d win by a country mile. Some might even crown him the next sovereign. At the farmers’ protest in Westminster yesterday, Clarkson dominated the coverage, overshadowing even the other luminaries in attendance.

Several high-profile Conservatives were present, including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, and Robert Jenrick, alongside Nigel Farage in bespoke country-gent attire and Richard Tice from Reform. Yet they were all eclipsed by a shambling, frail figure in a moth-eaten pea coat, faded jeans, and a beanie hat: Jeremy Clarkson.

Clarkson, looking every inch as if he’d been mucking out that morning, took on a smug BBC presenter, creating Twitter-ready content in the process, before delivering a short but powerful and humorous speech. Packed with memorable lines, his highlights included: ‘Sheep look at GS4 (eco-friendly feed) the same way a five-year-old looks at an olive’; ‘When did the BBC become the mouthpiece of this infernal government?’; and ‘You lot got a knee to the nuts and a light hammer blow to the back of the head’ (farmers, in response to the budget).