Future historians, looking back over the headlines of the past few days, may pause bemusedly. They’ll know all about the Greek crisis, Yemen warfare, the start of the May 2015 election. Such things are the stuff of textbooks. But what, pray, was Top Gear? Who was this Jeremy Clarkson, a figure so seemingly important that even the prime minister rushed to his defence? (Until he rushed in the other direction.) Why on earth did a cut lip and a few undeleted expletives seem to matter so much to so many? All of which, in a sobersided sort of way, is fair enough. Of course there’s an overblown feel to the whole affair. Nevertheless, at its core, the fate of Top Gear and its abruptly changed presenter tells us something serious about the nature and conduct of Britain’s state broadcaster.
The BBC has its critics in the press. Sometimes it appears to have nothing but critics there, despising its bureaucracy, complaining about its supposed bias and capacity for self-aggrandisement. But the Clarkson affair draws a line across the studio floor. It defines why and how the BBC is different. Suppose that Jeremy Clarkson had been making a £50m movie. Suppose that, overstressed and overtired, he’d thrown a punch and a load of foul language at a junior producer who didn’t, and still doesn’t, want to make a fuss. Would there have been such an outcry? Would the film company itself have put a £50m investment on the line?
Don’t bet on it too heavily. A fortune against one split lip? The job of a big man, with many more jobs hanging on it, against a dismissal that would cheer very few devoted fans? It wasn’t an easy decision. There were losers either way. But the BBC, on its mettle after too many disasters long ago, declined even to think of wriggling.
Tony Hall, as BBC director general, had his first proper Twitter storm to deal with – not to mention political pressure from on high. There would have been anxious finance and contract staff, computing the franchise losses. And unfriendly newspapers, totally predictably, had seized on the pursed-lip performance of Danny Cohen, Lord Hall’s director of television. Too many final warnings, too little effort to help a major “talent” who was obviously having a stressful time. In a world full of cliche demons, Jeremy Clarkson clearly had some of his own.
All that made things more difficult for Lord Hall. The temptation to duck and weave was obvious. Instead he asked one of the corporation’s straightest arrows, the veteran controller of BBC Scotland, to inquire and establish the facts. Ken MacQuarrie reported an unprovoked attack on Oisin Tymon that sent him to the local accident and emergency department, plus continuing “abusive and derogatory language” which, shocked and distressed, made him fear for his job. It was wild; it was cruel; it was simply unacceptable. Lord Hall did the right thing. He published Mr MacQuarrie’s damning verdict, and he swiftly drew the only reasonable conclusion. Jeremy Clarkson, regardless of how much revenue disappears with him, is out. No matter how big a star you are, no matter how many devotees follow your show, there’s a limit, a human limit, to your behaviour: and today’s BBC can make no allowances.
Of course the story will rattle on for a while. Jeremy Clarkson has a new job to find and a life to put back together. Lord Hall has a recast Top Gear to drive into the headlight glare of fresh criticism. But the BBC itself is a better place. For the corporation, at root, is not like any other broadcaster. Its salary structure, as it has discovered, is a matter of public remark. Its existence lies in political hands. Though the BBC has to compete against the Skys and ITVs of this world, it must also reflect and embody the values of public service. Those have sometimes seemed lost in the tangles of recent (and older) evasions. They have also been trussed in knots by a governance structure that complicates rather than resolves.
That wasn’t the case this time, however. Lord Hall moved fast, with generous words, regret, but an inescapable decision. He was a director general and a director in particular. He showed that he was in charge.
That ought to hearten the corporation as it embarks on the treacherous trek towards a renewed royal charter. It has to be different, with different values – as Jeremy Clarkson, for all his fame, surely realises now.