Gaffes of the year 2011. Jeremy Clarkson on the November 30 public sector strikes. See the rest here. (via guardian)

see, the trouble with this is whilst i agree clarkson is a giant bellend at the best of times, and on that topic you’ll get no arguments BUT. this quote has been thrown out of context by the exclusion of what he said prior to that, that the protests were brilliant because london was so quiet. he THEN said, “but seeing as we’re on the bbc and we have to be unbiased” (paraphrasing) …then the line about having the strikers shot. so ill timed and beligerent? absolutely. but that is not anything new. people have moaned and complained about the quote above without even seeing the thing for themselves - something that we always berate the “other side” for doing. it’s sometimes good to remember that there are stupid, reactionary fools on both sides of the fence. we roll our eyes at people we percieve as “wrong” for complaining about so much and yet when someone says something that we don’t agree with and all hell breaks loose. we berate the likes of fox news for editing speech until it fits their liking yet when it’s done on ‘our’ behalf, we say nothing. that’s the beautiful thing about freedom of speech - people can say what they like but we always have the right to reply and tell those people how wrong they are. that works both ways whether people agree with it or not and people ought to remember that sometimes. 

(via questionall)