IN A throwaway tweet last week I said that if the BBC had pursued Jimmy Savile with the same vigour as they have Jeremy Clarkson, then how much hurt, pain and criminality might have been avoided.

Little did I suspect that a few days later alleged BBC sources would be quoted, apparently conflating the Jimmy Savile affair with that of the errant Top Gear presenter.

No wonder Clarkson has instructed lawyers.

Jimmy Savile is thought to have raped or sexually abused up to 1,000 children and young people ON BBC PREMISES.

Jeremy Clarkson is accused of punching a TV producer. An allegation he denies. It’s not nice. Not right. And if it’s proven that he did this or anything like it then he should definitely get the boot. No one should get away with that.

But even the most rabid Clarko-baiter, the most car-hating, joyless, Guardian-reading, Islingtonite Beeboid can surely see there is a difference between what Savile did and what Clarkson is alleged to have done?

These people screaming for Clarkson’s head on a plate are generally the very same folk that screech to the heavens about the rule of law, and people being innocent until proven guilty. They’re the ones that pompously insist that while they may not agree with what you say, old chap, they defend to the death your right to say it.

Except they don’t, do they?

If they don’t like your politics they ignore all their fine principles and become part of the baying mob. Which is both worrying and creepy.

Jeremy Clarkson may be a rude old dinosaur. He may say things which make him appear racist. He may be an insensitive public school snob. And he may or may not have punched an innocent producer. If he has, it should be a matter for the police, not some BBC kangaroo court.

Either way, I hope this matter is cleared up quickly. So that we can all get back to the real issue - which is inquiring just why the publicly-funded corporation still has not sacked, disciplined, upbraided, or handed over for prosecution ANYONE over the scandalous Jimmy Savile affair.

RSPCA won't be getting any more of my money

IT’S TAKEN me a bit of time to catch up with the sorry saga of Mr Pig, the Dorset porker who was spirited away by the RSPCA and ‘euthanised’ - killed, in other words - because they said he was too ill with cancer. 

He may have been, I don’t know, I’m not an expert on pigs. But I do know that a man who builds a pig his own home, steams him vegetables, bathes his weepy eye and is as ridiculously besotted with him as owner Bob Skinner was, is not a man who is routinely cruel to animals.

So why, after offing his porcine mate, did the RSPCA prosecute him for this?

Luckily the court threw the allegation out but that doesn't take away the hurt he feels or his dismay. Or the feeling that the RSPCA is sometimes not the caring outfit we all believed it to be.

Like a lot of people I’ve always seen the RSPCA as a decent, kindly organisation that was there to protect our furry and feathery friends from cruel and heartless owners. And, at the bottom level, it is.
But sometimes it seems as if those higher up are starting to lose their way.

We always have rescue cats but stopped getting them from the RSPCA years back, because they said that my working part-time meant any cat we had would be ‘lonely’ and they couldn’t allow that.

It makes you wonder how many cats the RSPCA actually knows. Because the Enormous Ginger - happily adopted from Cats’ Protection - is never lonely when we’re not here. Mainly because he has half the village dancing in attendance on him and at least four houses where we know he makes calls for snacks and mindless adoration during work hours.

If Mr Pig was not being cared for appropriately couldn’t the RSPCA have given advice or told Bob the awful truth, and then helped him over it? It would have been the kindest thing for the human as well as the animal.

As it is, they wont be getting any more of my money.

Kitchengate goes on 

Last week we were treated, if that’s the right word, to Ed and Justine Miliband’s ‘other’ kitchen - the mean, poky, tableless affair that looked to me suspiciously as if it might belong to the nanny. And so Kitchengate was born.

This week it was Dave Cameron, giving us a turn about the Number 10 catering facilities. And I didn’t like those much, either - too much stainless steel and what were the kids’ toothbrushes doing on the table?

When it comes to publicity, spin doctors should know that nothing says more about you than your kitchen.

Mine (white Metro tiles, scaffold-board worktops, black Kitchen Aid mixer, since you ask) has taken just a shade shorter for Shaun-the-chippie to build than the coalition’s been in power. Make of THAT what you will!

Heather Mills more famous than Macca?

ACCORDING to Heather Mills, ex of the more famous Sir Paul McCartney: “I go down the street and all I get is kids coming up to me and half of them don’t even know who he is.”

This would be the Paul McCartney who was 50 per cent of the world’s greatest songwriting partnership. The Paul McCartney who co-fronted the greatest band the world has ever seen, whose music defined a whole era. The Paul McCartney who is still so famous he can’t walk down the street without being recognised. Even by kids.

So, Heather; animal activist, downhill skier, subject of lurid gossip... you just keep telling yourself all that about Sir Paul. Everyone else will keep buying the music. And wondering, perhaps, if you are going off your ghastly, self-absorbed head.