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Jeremy Clarkson has claimed that warnings about Storm Eowyn, which has unleashed 100 mph winds on the UK and Ireland and left one man dead, is part of an “anti-Tory” narrative.
A flurry of fresh weather warnings for snow, wind and rain were issued on Saturday (25 January) as the inclement weather continues to batter the UK and Ireland.
Flights have been cancelled, major rail routes closed and ferry services were axed again on Saturday after winds hit parts of Britain throughout Friday. Millions were left without power due to the vicious storm.
Met Office has now issued weather warnings through until Tuesday, with a new low-pressure system set to take hold over the weekend, moving in from the southwest as Storm Eowyn passes.
Clarkson, in his column for The Sun, has scoffed at the warnings issued by experts, instead calling the conditions a “bit breezy”.
“The weathermen were all standing on the bottom corner of Ireland, making out like they were in Hiroshima in 1945 and there were stories that commercial airliners were coming across the Atlantic at speeds in excess of 800 mph,” wrote the 64-year-old.
The former Top Gear host then turned his attention to television weather presenters and the BBC. “Look, I know why the weathermen like to get hysterical,” claimed Clarkson. “It means they are elevated from a slot at the end of a news bulletin into the bulletin itself and this makes their mums and dads very proud.”
“And I know why BBC television producers like the histrionics as well. It plays into the anti-Tory, anti-growth, anti-business global-warming narrative.”
Clarkson met with Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch in December, after the MP attached herself to the presenter’s campaign against Labour’s decision to scrap agricultural property relief.
The Grand Tour presenter went on to say the storm was a “bloody nuisance” before highlighting his own experiences with the infamous storm of 1987 and in southern Chile “where it rains, heavily, all day and every day for six months”.
He also asked for future storms to stop receiving names that “no one can pronounce”, and jokingly called the storm Eeowowyion.
He concluded by saying: “So, please, in future calmly tell us what the weather will do tomorrow so we’ll know in the morning if we should put on a jumper. And then leave it at that.”
