Finally, a sensible reaction to Jeremy Clarkson's 'shoot the strikers' joke

George Eaton writes a level-headed piece on the reaction to Jeremy Clarkson’s joke on The One Show calling for all strikers to be ‘executed in front of their families’:

The literal minded response of most liberals only panders to Clarkson’s depiction of the left as sour, humourless and boring.

Those on the left “outraged” by Clarkson’s comments are the mirror image of those on the right who cry foul when Ken Livingstone jokes about hanging Osborne or compares Boris to Hitler. The divide, in this instance, is not between the left and the right but between the ironic mind and the literal mind. We can either live in a censorious society where individuals are free to use only the blandest language possible, or one in which we tolerate bad jokes and make them in return. I know which I prefer.