Dugher stokes row with Jeremy Clarkson, brands Top Gear presenter “an idiot”

Labour Shadow Transport Secretary Michael Dugher has become embroiled in a bizarre row with Jeremy Clarkson after saying he is not a fan of Top Gear.

Dugher said of the BBC show, which has a Guinness world record for being the most watched factual programme in the world, “I don’t watch the programme, it’s not my kind of telly.”

But the Barnsley East MP had harsher words still for Clarkson, describing him as “basically an idiot” and questioning the extent he is portrayed as representative of people who drive:

“Jeremy Clarkson – I have no time for him. It’s not just his politics. I mean the guy is basically an idiot. And the idea that he is somehow the motorists’ representative? No he’s not, he represents himself.

“He’s not remotely representative of motorists. There’s a caricature of people like ‘petrolheads’. They’re not ‘motorists’, they’re people who have a car. That’s a lot of people – it’s how most of us move around most of the time. We’ve got to stop that caricaturing of a petrolhead, or a Clarkson.”

Clarkson, who has attracted criticism for saying the n-word, using racist language to describe an Asian man, and saying people on strike should be shot, characteristically did not refrain from replying to Dugher.

Taking to Twitter, where has four and a half million followers, Clarkson said it was “good” that Dugher was not a fan of his show, adding: “We don’t make it for people who wear pink ties.”

Undeterred, Dugher tweeted:

Since moving to the Shadow Transport brief, Dugher has vowed to ‘end the war on motorists’ – something which attracted the ire of former Transport Secretary John Prescott.