[surge]

I don't know, they stopped selling the confederate flag stuff, but they used to be renowned for selling books regardless of controversy of the content. So it could fall down either way.

Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations (singing a song he didn't want to sing because he only knew the racist version from when he grew up and didn't want to say the word, then being kept up for 24 hours, and made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt) he wasn't comfortable with. They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.

[darkr]

> singing a song he didn't want to sing

The scripts are written by the cast & the script editor (Richard Porter).

> made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt

It's well known that Clarkson is a fan of the booze to the point where you could reasonably categorise him as a functioning alcoholic. He recently publicly announced after the death of Charlie Kennedy that he was giving up. So I'm pretty sure that no-one was making him drink..

He likes to paint himself as the last bastion of free speech, innocent victim of the facist Big Brother Corporation, and a lot of other things inbetween; but the reality is that he's just that embarrassing Uncle who you have fond memories of when he used to let you smoke his cigarettes and drive his car around the block when you were 10, but now you're all grown up, going through your contacts, deciding who to invite to your wedding; you just skip past because you just know he'd end up shitting in the font and asking anyone with a tan what weddings are like where they're from.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

He assaulted a co-worker. I'm sorry but he only has himself to blame.

I genuinely don't understand why people think his sacking was part of some grand BBC conspiracy. He was good for ratings, they paid him well, it was in both parties' interests to keep him around as long as possible. Remember we're talking about the most popular TV show in the world here.

Unfortunately he put them in a situation where they really had no other choice.

[DanBC]

> Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations

There are many more than two incidents!

> They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.

Surely they could have just pointed to the money it made back? "We give it huge budget because it earns more money for us than anything else we produce".

The BBC has a history of poor management of talent. See eg Chris Evans getting sacked from the Breakfast Show after making demands.