For the first time since 2019, families across Britain can come together to celebrate the festive period in a traditional manner. 

At a time of year when many traditionally come together with their loved ones, relatives were unable to gather in the same room.

There was, however, one major advantage. Thanks to lockdown, we all got to avoid being sat next to the weird uncle who says ‘Jeremy Clarkson tells it like it is’. 

Who?

TV presenter. 

No, tell it like it is.

He’s the most prominent example of an entire generation of lazy, comfortable, obscenely overpaid newspaper columnists whose only job is to file a few hundred words once a week about how awful the young, the working class, the underpaid workers, the trans people, the foreigners or the vegans are. 

He’s somehow spent decades seducing uncles in stonewash jeans into believing he’s a ‘man of the people’ with whom they could conceivably enjoy a pint down their local, despite his preferred drinking partners actually being royals and Tory politicians. 

The Herald: A lazy, comfortable obscenely overpaid newspaper columnistA lazy, comfortable obscenely overpaid newspaper columnist (Image: PA Images)

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Sounds like the kind of guy whose Wikipedia page would have a ‘Controversies’ section.

Clarkson’s runs to 2,324 words. 

Give me some lowlights. 

How about the time in 2014 when, in Top Gear footage that was unaired, he appeared to use the n-word in a rhyme? Or the time in 2011 when his comments about suicidal people - which would never have made it into the pages of any reputable publication and won’t be repeated here - were described as “extraordinary tasteless” by the mental health charity MIND? Or the time, just days earlier, when he said of striking workers: “Frankly, I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.”?

Is his ‘Controversies’ section about to expand?

It’ll be hitting 3,000 words by the end of the week. 

What’s he done now?

As a 62-year-old man, Friday was his turn on the rota to write indefensible things about Meghan Markle. In his Sun column, he said: “I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level. 

“At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

Has Sun editor Victoria Newton issued a condemnation explaining that she would have spiked the article had she read it before publication and has subsequently dismissed Clarkson?

No. 

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Who has commented on the article?

Clarkson’s daughter Emily, who said on Instagram: “My views are and have always been clear when it comes to misogyny, bullying and the treatment of women by the media. I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything that my dad wrote about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred.”

So, rather than Meghan Markle, it’s actually Clarkson who’s being publicly shamed?

He now has to ask himself what matters more to him - the guffaws and scotch-egg-crumb-muffled applause of Britain’s worst uncles, or the respect of his daughter. 

Has Nicola Sturgeon responded to being mentioned in the same breath as serial killer Rose West?

She told BBC Scotland: “The overwhelming emotion I have for men like Jeremy Clarkson is pity.

"I can't imagine what it must be like to be so consumed and distorted by hate of other people, and in his case it appears women in particular, that you end up writing that toxic, vile abuse."

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The Herald: Meghan Markle continues to get under the skin of Britain's worst unclesMeghan Markle continues to get under the skin of Britain's worst uncles (Image: PA Images)

And what has Meghan Markle actually done to inspire all this hatred from the British press’ hacks?

Had the audacity to marry into the Royal Family while being a young, black woman. 

Hang on, didn’t she once punch a TV producer because she wanted a steak, before going on to call them a “lazy, Irish ****”? I mean, that’s the kind of behaviour that deserves a public shaming. 

No, that was Jeremy Clarkson.