In Clarkson we trust – now no one is laughing

As the late Bob Monkhouse used to say: “They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. They’re not laughing now.

- writes Adam Sherlock.

Nor is the farming establishment laughing, sneering at, or generally deriding Jeremy Clarkson any more. Jeremy Clarkson, whose elevation to a respectable pillar of the farming establishment has been confirmed with the news that his Diddly Squat Cotswolds farm, has been selected to host next year’s Cereals Event.

Clarkson has most definitely arrived.

It’s quite a turnround for a project which was originally dismissed as nothing more than a bit of clowning for a TV series, or as a tax dodge, or a meaningless venture into hobby farming by someone who no longer wants to be a millionaire because he already is one.

The farming establishment has now acknowledged that in the space of a couple of years Clarkson has become nationally recognised as the face of British farming - a claim which many an NFU president may vainly have made but has never been able to sustain.