Why do unions want to jail Jeremy Clarkson for making a joke?

Jeremy Clarkson is a talented man. Like him or loath him he is a really good writer and is the presenter, writer, and driving force, of the world's most popular tv programme. 

You cannot be that without public support in vast numbers.

Yesterday he made a joke about the striking civil servants live on the BBC. He said firstly how he supported them, paused, then said because the BBC has to be balanced, the strikers should be executed in front of their families. 

As a joke it may lack something, but it does reflect a strange hinterland the BBC is in: it has to give both sides by law.

As a joke you may not find it funny, but thats not important. 

Cue false outrage by the strikers on Twitter. Full of outrage with calls for his immediate imprisonment. It's funny really. This is the exact type of mob behaviour these people mock the Daily Mail readers for indulging in, the anti-Clarkson mob may be lefty but as just as ridiculous. 

Perhaps we are not so different after all. 

However that was just people jumping on a bandwagon. All fluff and fury........

Until the huge Unison union comes out and calls for Clarksons immediate sacking and is calling the police and want him jailed, beaten up, or other nastiness. 

How can a union be so stupid?

If Clarkson is agianst the strikes then it his right. Why would a union make itself so ridiculous as to attack anyone's freedom of thought or expression when they are using the same freedoms to strike? To be intolerant of others whilst preaching tolerance for your own actions is hypocritical. 

It is rather amusing to have right on types who are supporting a chap who was convicted for threatening to blow up an airport on twitter because it was a joke demanding jail and sacking of Clarkson for his joke. Are they hypocrites or just monumentally stupid I wonder. 

For a major union not to realise how bad this makes them look is worrying. More than that the fact they don't understand the concept of freedom of speech, or the fact that Clarkson made two statements one pro and one anti striker, or that it was a joke, does not reflect well on them. 

As for labour's Ed Milliband, put in place by the unions and beholden to the unions for money, to call for Clarkson to say sorry it's sort of pathetic. 

If Clarkson wants to say sorry fine, but he shouldn't be made to. No one should be made to apologise. Freedom of expression means we don't have to cower like a beaten dog when those in power threaten us with punishment for what we say. 

The freedom of expression and thought are a way to rebel against authority without threat of jail for what you say. 

Freedom of thought and expression means we don't have to apologise or hide what we think or feel. We don't have to keep silent when we see abuses, or injustice. We can say what we like. That's the point. We don't have a right not to be offended only the right to freedom of speech. 

People forget that. 

As it happens Clarkson won't be sacked. His Top Gear programme is the biggest tv programme in the world. Each episode of this cheap to make programme is seen by over three hundred million people in over 100 countires. The magazines, DVDs, books, games, toys, etc., the BBC sell off the back of this programme makes Clarkson and Top Gear the biggest and most profitable venture in the history of the Beeb. 

If they sack Clarkson he'll either take Top Gear to another channel as its his baby and isn't made by the BBC or make a rival programme. Clarkson is key to TG's success so either option is bad for the BBC. 

For those who hate the programme or Clarkson and would love seeing it being finished think on this. If Clarkson or TG go there will be massive cuts to the BBC arts, entertainment, etc., budget. Clarkson's profitable programme is a rarity. He subsidies all the drama, documentaries, and the like who don't make a penny. Without the Top Gear income BBC drama will be devastated. 

Jeremy Clarkson has the right to make a joke. It is a right enshrined in law. 

For unions or the left to call for his sacking or jailing shows a shallow, ignorant, mindset. It shows a terrible tendency to bully those who disagree with them and an inability to see how stupid it makes them look.