Time for a naked protest against global cant and in support of Jeremy Clarkson

I was all set to join some of my more liberated neighbours on York’s Naked Bike Ride last Friday, until I discovered that it was yet another protest against ‘global oil dependency’. The debate about climate change, carbon emissions and who is doing what to the planet has reached such a fever pitch of self-righteousness and middle-class guilt that it is time for sensible people to start backpedalling. The first thing that made me want to launch my own naked protest against global cant was the pronouncement by Dr Antonio Filippone of Manchester University that if half a million drivers attach England flags to their cars for the duration of the World Cup, the extra fuel consumed because of the drag factor will generate an additional 2.8 million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide. It was brave of Tessa Jowell to fly her flags on the ministerial limo anyway (perhaps she hasn’t got much to lose these days) and characteristically slick of both Cameron and Blair to find carbon-neutral alternative ways to fly theirs, respectively on a bicycle and up a Downing Street flagpole.