Starmer’s brand of politics is dying – Clarkson could deliver the fatal blow
Jeremy Clarkson, your country needs you! Please take a sabbatical from Diddly Squat Farm, and enter the political fray. You would eat this dreadful Labour Government alive, and send our rotten, virtue-signalling ruling class into a blind panic. Britain longs for change, for a plain-spoken outsider to disrupt our rancid political system.
The Left in every country has always despised kulaks and yeomen-farmers, accusing them of hoarding land and other crimes against socialism.
Clarkson is having none of it: he tore into Labour’s class warriors, demanded the mass sacking of civil servants, exposed the BBC’s bias and accused the Government of seeking to “ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers” in order to “carpet bomb” it with windfarms. After years of apologetic, cowardly, defeatist mush, it was precisely what Britain’s Right-coded electorate wanted to hear.
I would urge Kemi Badenoch, who is having a good start to her leadership, to sign up Clarkson in a tailor-made, high-profile role; if she doesn’t, Farage will presumably forgive the TV star’s uncharacteristic support of Remain, and offer him a central position.
For now, as a result of the sabotaging of Brexit, the implosion of the 2019 administration and an endless series of Tory betrayals and idiocy, our politics is out of sync with our culture. We are lumbered with an extremely Left-wing Government, just as the mood throughout the country, the English-speaking world and Europe drifts ever more to the populist Right. Keir Starmer was a lucky general, but he is stuck in the past, citing the BBC, whose relevance is fast waning, in his defence.
Half of young British men aged 18-35 would have voted for Donald Trump, twice the proportion that voted Tory or Reform combined. Women and older voters are much less keen, but the shift among the young “manosphere” – which never watches the BBC – is remarkable, and partly due to a dramatic backlash against wokery.
Jim Blagden of More in Common explains that of Britain’s pro-Trump, non-Tory voters, a third are young men, a fifth are from minority ethnic groups, and 38 per cent have been to university. The Trump coalition exists in Britain too: to be marshalled, it requires a non-establishment, unconventional leader dedicated to perpetual war against the Blob.
James Kanagasooriam, the pollster, rightly argues that “if Jeremy Clarkson entered politics now – it could be Britain’s Trump moment – but far more English and less authoritarian”.
Social media, YouTube and podcasts, turbocharged by algorithmic targeting, have gained hugely in influence, dethroning the old gatekeepers. Repeated failures and extreme arrogance mean that trust in experts, in professional politicians and traditional, corporate institutions has collapsed.
The public are turning for leadership and inspiration to heterodox, charismatic figures who transcend neat ideological boxes – of which Clarkson is one of Britain’s pre-eminent examples.
Trump, a former Democrat, property developer and TV star, is obviously the greatest beneficiary to date of this remarkable trend. Boris Johnson in his original incarnation tapped into it beautifully, and Nigel Farage is a current beneficiary. In North America, Elon Musk, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the podcaster Joe Rogan and the psychologist Jordan Peterson are notable cases. In Argentina, Javier Milei, an economics professor famous for his myriad TV appearances, has become the world’s first anarcho-capitalist president.
Crucially, all of these figures are distinct from the Taylor Swifts, Eva Longorias and other showbiz stars whose campaigning for Kamala Harris was so ineffectual. Celebrity per se isn’t enough, and neither is being a talented musician or singer: the public craves substance, a commitment to the public interest, a rejection of the current pensée unique and self-sacrifice.
Clarkson is in the same category as J K Rowling, one of the heroes of our times, Martin Lewis, the personal finance guru (who is superhumanly popular on Left and Right) and Marcus Rashford, the Leftist footballer.
The fools who were laughing at Trump and Musk a few weeks ago are sneering at Clarkson today. They never learn. Speaking only to their echo chambers, they don’t understand Clarkson’s appeal, just as they cannot fathom why Trump gains from eating McDonald’s or why he is treated as a conquering hero by Ultimate Fighting Championship stars and fans. They don’t realise that cancel culture is in retreat, that ordinary people are fed up of being looked down upon and told what to do by credentialled elites, and that the Left is slowly being ousted from the commanding heights.
Clarkson, who never went to university, is exceptionally popular: his net favourability rating is +17 per cent, according to JL Partners. All the main politicians are in negative territory, with Badenoch at -1 and Farage at -10 leading the pack. Reeves is at -16 and Starmer at an abysmal -22.
Clarkson’s authenticity is key. He’s pro-freedom, ready to stand up to the mob, a liberating force. The vast majority of the population are not race and class addled, and they appreciate the fact that Clarkson doesn’t apologise for being white, a public-school boy and prosperous. He is who he is, and you can take him or leave him. He speaks his mind, and hates what used to be called political correctness. His wealth and success help, rather than hinder, his popularity: the public realise that he has a lot to lose, like Trump, Rowling and Musk, and they respect him for alienating his luvvie erstwhile friends.
We have also become a little more American: most of us admire his success and talent, rather than resent it. Nobody cares whether or not Clarkson originally bought agricultural land to avoid tax. He clearly truly loves farming. Almost everybody would avoid inheritance tax if they could: it is a loathsome form of legalised theft. Labour’s decision to double down on support for the almost universally reviled death tax is politically incompetent, and demonstrates their capture by proto-Marxist ideologues. The fact that only a few farms will be destroyed in the first instance is irrelevant: it’s the principle that counts, and we are on a slippery slope.
I’ve become something of a pessimist in recent years, but Clarkson’s performance fighting for Britain’s farmers has filled me with hope again. Change is possible after all. If Clarkson enters politics, Labour should be very afraid indeed.