Toby Young, author and Daily Telegraph columnist, thinks people are pretending to take the comments at face value in order to "get offended" as they see Jeremy Clarkson as a "political opponent" and "it's an excuse to bash him".

He also believes that Twitter played an important role as "the story for the papers was not that he simply said something offensive but that he said something obsessive and then trended on Twitter". "In order to trend on Twitter" he adds "you only need to offend a few people"

Joan Burnie, of the Daily Record, agrees and says the "only way to get trended is to be deeply offensive". However, she believes that "Clarkson can't be taken seriously".

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