Jeremy Clarkson says protesting Tarquins “don’t care about loft insulation” and “just want to annoy the comfortably off”.
The Clarkson’s Farm host says eco-warriors who glue themselves to roads and railings are driven by “envy” which lies behind most of the world’s problems.
The 63-year-old TV star, who reportedly boasts a £55million fortune, reckons that is why they demonstrate in rich areas.
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Clarkson said: “We have those fools who keep glueing themselves to things.
“You’ll notice they don’t do this in Pontefract or Phnom Penh.
“It’s always Knightsbridge or Mayfair.
“They don’t care about loft insulation any more than you or I do.
(Image: Brian J Ritchie/Hotsauce/REX/Shutterstock)
“They just want to annoy the comfortably off because they’re envious of our holidays and our golf bats and how we can go to work in a car rather than in a mist of sweat and danger on a two-wheeled children’s toy.
“I don’t understand this mentality at all.'”
The Grand Tour and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host said though five of the Ten Commandments are “absolutely nonsense” he does “go with the one that says you shouldn’t covet your neighbour’s ox – or even your neighbour’s helicopter”.
He went on: “Here in Chipping Norton I have three neighbours who regularly fly over my house in their Agusta 109 choppers and I never think, as they whomp off to yet another amazing caviar-and-champagne evening: ‘Right. I’m going to behead you for that’.
“I’m happy for them.
(Image: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/REX/Shutterstock)
“I’m reminded at this point of the observation that when an American tramp sees a rich man cruise past in a limousine he thinks: ‘One day I’ll have one of those’.
“But when a British tramp sees a rich man purr by in a limo he thinks: ‘One day I’ll have him out of that’.
“It’s envy.
“A drug lord is envious of a rival’s turf so he breaks out the MAC-10s and pretty soon people are dangling from every motorway bridge in the land.
“Or a tribal leader is envious of another tribal leader’s shiny new Chinese-made helicopter gunship, or an impoverished Malian camel herder is envious when a fat westerner cruises past in an air-conditioned 4×4.
“Envy doesn’t just cause armed conflict, either.
“You look at all those people running around in France, setting fire to bin bags and making mooing noises in the expensive bits of Paris, and it quickly becomes obvious that their main beef is not Macron’s attempt to raise the retirement age to 24, or his insistence that civil servants should turn up for work at least one day in their lives.
(Image: Getty Images)
“It’s envy of people who are so rich they can not only afford to have bin bags but also to fill them every day with stuff they don’t even want.'”
Clarkson said though actor Ryan Reynolds , 46, is a “good looking”, funny movie superstar he was delighted when football minnows Wrexham – which the Hollywood A-lister has ploughed his money into – was last week promoted to League Two.
“He was born good looking and, thanks to a quick wit and excellent comic timing, became not just an extremely successful film star but also the owner of a Welsh football club,” he said.
“And I never want to remove a single ox from his foldyard.
“I can understand that you might be a bit aggrieved if you’d been born in poverty in war-torn Yemen.
“You see clips of western pop stars on the television, getting into their G-Wagens, and you’re bound to think: ‘Why should he have one of those when all I have is this goat?’
“Luck’s a hard concept to grasp when you don’t have any.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
