March 20 Letters: Unwarranted attacks on BBC can’t excuse Clarkson

WITH regard to Jayne Dowle’s column about Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC (The Yorkshire Post, March 16), I would like to put right some of her lop-sided opinions and inaccurate statements, made in an attempt to try and put the Beeb in a bad light, which seems to be this newspaper’s mission in life.

I would also point out that Clarkson is not only a hero to thousands of chaps but also women as well, you only have to look at the studio audience 
and hear female friends and family who also seem to relish what the programme has 
to offer.

It is not filmed at Brands Hatch as stated, but Dunsfold Aerodrome, and the alleged racist remark was never broadcast and was in fact an out-take but it somehow it got into the public domain. I wonder how?

To suggest that the country is being bled dry by the licence fee is a nonsense, at 40p a day it offers far better value for money than The Yorkshire Post, which is now priced at 80p and even more on a Saturday.

Well Jayne, if the BBC has decided “he is not politically, correct, too male, too white and too middle class to fit the mould” as you state, it’s taken a long time to come to that decision, as he joined the show in 1988.

She then goes on to state “the BBC promotes a generally left-wing political agenda” but she gives no facts to substantiate it.

However, in Bill Carmichael’s column (The Yorkshire Post, March 13), he states that “Clarkson has the ability to wind up the bed wetters of the politically-correct Left”.

Goodness me, is this the 
BBC promoting right-wing thinking? You can’t have it 
both ways.

I would also like to know Bill, what single mother on a council estate has gone to jail because 
of non-payment of the licence fee?

This dispute is not over a steak, it might have been the catalyst but the real reason is the alleged throwing of a punch.

In any organisation I have worked in fighting has always been a sackable offence and therefore needs investigation.

The right wing Press, and politicians of all persuasions, in particular the Tories, would love to see the BBC broken up and brought under control, but 
all the time we pay a very modest licence fee it has its independence.

Try watching free to air American TV – it’s unwatchable – that’s what we would have 
in store for us if the licence 
fee goes and commercial interests get their way.