Top Gears’ Jeremy Clarkson fuels row over Mexican ‘racist slurs’

LONDON - While the BBC was forced to apologise after Top Gear host Richard Hammond described Mexicans as ‘lazy, feckless… and flatulent’ in their show, co-host Jeremy Clarkson has again insulted them in his newspaper column.

Clarkson accused the Mexicans of having no sense of humour in his column in The Sun.

He also quoted jokes about various nations - including Britain - to tailor his argument.

“…there are calls in Britain at the moment for all offensive humour to be banned. But what people don’t realise is that without offence, there can be no jokes,” he wrote.

Despite earlier apologising for the show’s ‘feckless’ comments, the loud mouth host then ended the column with his own joke about Mexicans.

“Mexico doesn’t have an Olympic team… because anyone who can run, jump or swim is already across the border,” The Daily Mail quoted him from his column.

He added that ‘at one point on Wednesday we were receiving 200 complaints from Mexico every minute’.

His latest comments come after a Mexican instructed lawyers to bring a test case against Top Gear.

Iris de la Torre, a jewellery design student in London, is bringing the claim under a new equality law. Her lawyers claim it could cost the BBC 1million pounds in damages.

They have demanded the hit BBC1 motoring show is taken off the air and an investigation made into the comments.

Meanwhile, Brit MPs have now demanded that the BBC apologises over the ‘ignorant, derogatory and racist remarks’.

In a Commons motion, a cross-party group of six MPs said the comments were ‘unacceptable and untimely’.

This is not the first time Top Gear, with its blend of motoring news, schoolboy humour and audacious stunts, has got into trouble.

In 2008, the show was rapped by the BBC Trust for showing Clarkson and May sipping gin and tonic at the wheel during a stunt. (ANI)