Once again, Jeremy Clarkson has proved that he has learned diddly squat from the success of his Prime Video TV show, Clarkson’s Farm. That series has very consciously cast the pugilistic ex-Top Gear host in a more kindly light: he has gone from potty-mouthed petrolhead to amiable amateur farmer, fretting about his sheep and the challenges of crop rotation.
But now – and not for the first time – he has ripped up much of that goodwill with an unpleasant rant that makes you wonder if the more pleasant Clarkson we see in Clarkson’s Farm is merely an act for the cameras. In 2022, the target was Meghan Markle, whom he fantasised about booing in a Game of Thrones-style shame walk. Now it is the turn of BBC nature presenter Chris Packham, who had the nerve to critique the dystopian reality, as he sees it, of industrial-scale farming in the UK.
What did Packham have to say specifically about Clarkson’s Diddly Squat demense in the Cotswolds? Not much, it turns out. Watching the opening credits of Clarkson’s Farm for Celebrity Gogglebox, Packham merely pointed out that the title sequence to the smash series painted an unrealistic picture of modern-day farming. “That’s not what a farm looks like. Most farms are horrible monocultures which have been sprayed with deadly chemicals,” he said. “The ground has been pumped full of fertiliser, and most of the animals are indoors, in crates, being crushed and kept in the dark.”
