Can the BBC afford to turn its back on Jeremy Clarkson?

As Jeremy Clarkson gets himself into hot water again, Raymond Snoddy wonders what implications his potential departure may have for the BBC.

Vacancy: Soon to be announced. Wanted – bumptious, offensive, politically incorrect television presenter with prehistoric views who knows a little bit about cars and who is loved by half the world and hated by the rest in equal measure, and who is actually a lot smarter than he appears.

The internal inquiry into the behaviour of Jeremy Clarkson has not yet been conducted but time seems to running out for Marmite Man – the public schoolboy who never quite grew up.

The allegation is that Clarkson punched one of his producers in the face in a row over food – how very public school. This is denied and no-one outside the Top Gear team yet knows the full facts.

But what can be said is that for Clarkson to be suspended and the final programmes of the Top Gear series, the most popular on BBC 2, to be pulled suggests that something serious is at stake.

Such a decision could not have happened without the knowledge and probable approval of Lord Hall, the BBC director general.

If such an assault is found to have happened, it could then become a police matter. If so the BBC will have little choice but to let him go.

But what a choice. What a dilemma. That same bumptious, politically incorrect persona has helped to build a worldwide brand for petrol-heads everywhere – a brand that is worth more than £150 million a year to BBC Worldwide.

Can the BBC really afford to turn its back on such a prized if terminally unpredictable asset?

But as the headline writers have it, Clarkson may have finally run out of road.

The question will inevitably be asked whether BBC executives could have managed the situation any better – kept their star presenter wrapped in cotton wool or at least further away from trouble.

Probably not. That was his “charm” if that is not a wholly inappropriate word.

He has been a serial offender across a wide front and the next bust-up was always waiting just around the corner.

Even the best football managers have proved incapable of preventing their errant multi-millionaire charges from performing scissor-kicks on fans, spitting, biting and in extreme cases being found guilty of rape. So what hope for the BBC.

In the Clarkson context the general right to be offensive is something that should be protected but it is a difficult right to enforce when you are a highly rewarded and highly visible mainstream television presenter. Certain minimum standards are expected.

Society has also changed, and with it what is considered acceptable in how ethnic minorities are portrayed and described. In most cases it’s more about human decency and empathy than political correctness or freedom of expression.

Clarkson obviously doesn’t get any of that.

As the editor of the Radio Times Ben Preston put it, Clarkson is a Nigel Farage-like figure before UKIP – not that Farage has been accused of thumping people.

Difficult to imagine, as we were asked to believe, that his Argentine number plate, which caused predictable and nearly dangerous reactions in Argentina – H982 FKL – was a complete coincidence.

Clarkson’s latest offence – if offence it turns out to be – merely rounds out the range of indiscretions and delinquencies.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the BBC Trust, likes to talk about a decision she was involved in at Pearson about whether to include creationism in American science textbooks. To exclude such dogma would cost millions in lost sales in southern US states.

The decision was that as there was no scientific basis whatever for creationism it should not appear in a science textbook. Pearson did the right thing and took the financial hit. Maybe something similar will have to happen with Clarkson.

The inquiry is taking place against a background of changed times at the BBC following the rather wider investigation into a culture of bullying at the Corporation.

If it is found that a powerful, apparently untouchable presenter thumped one of his producers in the workplace Clarkson will soon be free to take talent to Sky.

What then for Top Gear? The programme can, and should, return. No-one is ever really indispensible. Perhaps his co-presenters James May and Richard Hammond, who have been overshadowed by the great man, will happily step up to the plate.

Instead of launching a trawl for another male idiot how about finding a feisty woman?

After all there have been no less than 21 presenters on Top Gear in all its various guises and iterations over the years and they have included both Angela Rippon and Kate Humble.

The format – a combination of exotic films and studio presentation – is a sound one and can survive the departure.

If the opportunity arises there might actually be a bonus in modernising the line-up and start attracting those who reach for the remote the moment the man comes on.

Another, rather more weighty, decision awaits the BBC and other broadcasters over the televised leadership debates in the run-up to May’s general election.

Silly comments have been made by the likes of columnist Matthew Parris and Lord Grade, former chairman of the BBC, along the lines that broadcasters are getting above their station by threatening to “empty chair” David Cameron if he will only turn up on his own terms.

Lord Grade goes further and claims such a thing would be a breech of impartiality rules.

In fact the Prime Minister has said the format is a matter for broadcasters to decide and, unless it is grotesquely unreasonable, it is a matter for David Cameron to decide whether or not he choses to turn up.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is perfectly willing to stand in for him.

Once again broadcasters should do the right thing on behalf of the public interest and if that means ruffling the feathers of the Prime Minister or other politicians so be it.

Alas since coming out of the closet as a Tory grandee Lord Grade talks very little sense these days. The need to appear to be impartial in the past obviously prevented him from saying silly things.

As for Ed Miliband and his promise of legislation to compel politicians leaders to take part in TV debates, what can be said other than note his unerring skill in getting the wrong end of almost everything.