On 16 December, former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote an article for The Sun taking aim at Meghan Markle after the final episodes of her Netflix documentary attacking the Royal Family had been released. It ended up generating the most complaints for an article in IPSO’s (the press regulator) history, with 17,500 registered on 20 December. Clarkson had said that he hated Markle on a “cellular level” and that he was dreaming of the day when “she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain whilst the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”. The excrement passage was a reference to a scene in the popular HBO series Game of Thrones — later turned into a widely-used gif. It was simultaneously mocking Markle and (since it was clearly intended to be hyperbolic) the author’s knee-jerk reaction against her. Even so, it was interpreted widely in the most ungenerous light, and Clarkson requested that the article should be taken down. He promised that he would be “more careful in the future”.
This forced contrition was insufficient for some, however — many of whom have ideologically objected to Clarkson and The Sun for years. Noting the more extreme calls to prosecute Clarkson on social media, Dr Louise Raw, who calls herself an “Activist, Antifascist, historian”, elected to start a crowdfund on 20 December, which she hoped would reach the target of £15,000. According to…
