Jeremy Clarkson has been a favourite of mine since the 1980s, when he was already writing with that sharp, unpretentious style in the motoring press. Over the years his programmes and columns have entertained me and, indeed, my now octogenarian father, who on some Sundays asks whether I have read Clarkson’s column in that day’s newspaper.
Nothing he has done, however, has been more valuable than Clarkson’s Farm. As someone who farms on a smaller scale in County Galway, I can say without hesitation that he is performing a magnificent service for farmers everywhere. Week after week he shows an increasingly urbanised population what agriculture actually involves: the weather, the labour, the margins, the supply chains and the sheer unpredictability of producing food. In an age when most people have little or no connection to the land, this kind of education is genuinely important. In my opinion, for this alone he deserves a knighthood for services to farming.
That is why a particular sequence in Season 5, Episode 2 left me disappointed. While discussing how to attract customers to his pub over Christmas, Clarkson reads from the Gospel of St Matthew, which he explains he borrowed from a nearby church. He then makes a series of gratuitously inappropriate comments, including stating that Mary was not a virgin, followed by other remarks and a reference to the need for a penis in relation to the Virgin Birth.
It was not witty, it was not brave and it was entirely unnecessary. As a Catholic, I was saddened by it, and I have no doubt that members of other Christian denominations would feel the same way. Our Lady is not a figure for this kind of reality television treatment. To reduce the Blessed Virgin and the mystery of the Incarnation to crude sexual innuendo was cheap and disrespectful.
What makes the episode more disappointing is the clear double standard. Clarkson is not a reckless man. He knows perfectly well that he would never direct this kind of commentary at the sacred figures of other major faiths. The “courage” on display here carries no real risk because Christianity remains the one religion it is still socially acceptable to mock in Great Britain. That is not wit. It is a cheap, zero-risk shot.
Of course, I do not expect Jeremy Clarkson to share my faith. But a man of his intelligence and experience should know better than to reduce the Mother of God to the subject of crude remarks. It was also sobering to hear that he has recently been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. It is to be hoped that it has been caught early enough. I hope he will do better in future and, in a spirit of reparation and forgiveness for his slight to Our Lady, I suggest that we might include a Hail Mary for his full and swift recovery. As something of a national treasure, he still has important work to do.
I look forward to Season 6 of Clarkson’s Farm, and I hope the nativity scene features again. For Christmas 2026, perhaps he could look into a moving crib. A live camel and oxen should provide a good hook for an episode or two.
