‘I welcome all comers,’ says Energy Secretary after Doncaster-born TV star’s threat to ‘kick him out’
Ed Miliband has revealed he would “welcome” Jeremy Clarkson’s challenge for his constituency seat.
The former Top Gear presenter is nowadays associated with the Cotswolds, home to his Diddly Squat farm, but he was born in Doncaster in 1960 and last week pitched the possibility of running as MP there.
Clarkson wrote in a post on X on Oct 12: “People of Doncaster North. Are you happy with your MP? Would you like it if someone from your neck of the woods kicked him out?”
The Energy Secretary, who has represented Doncaster North since 2005, was asked about the potential challenge on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.
Mr Miliband said: “I think he is a long-standing aspirant to my seat – I think he said in 2013 he was going to contest my seat.
“Look, it’s for other people to decide if they want to stand for Parliament, including in my seat.
“I welcome all comers. Let’s see what happens.”
Mr Miliband won the seat with a majority of more than 9,000 at last year’s election, and the constituency has long been a red wall stronghold.
But locals told the Telegraph’s Rosa Silverman this week they “like” Clarkson, with a local business owner saying: “I think he just gets the people around here, and I don’t think Ed Miliband does.”
Clarkson has become one of Britain’s best-known rural voices since the release of Clarkson’s Farm, the Amazon documentary which documents the running of his Diddly Squat Farm.
Known for his plain speaking and conservative views, Clarkson made a speech against inheritance tax changes at a protest in Westminster.
He told the crowd: “About five years ago, I started farming and I have come to understand just how unbelievably difficult it is, and complicated and dangerous and cold. And it’s the costs that staggered me.
“And then you’ve got the environmentalists endlessly shouting at you, ‘Oh your, cows, they’re altering the composition of the gases in the upper atmosphere’.
“Now, I know a lot of people all across the country, in all walks of life, took a bit of a kick on the shin with that Budget. And then there was the inheritance tax business.
“I beg of the government to be big, to accept that this was rushed through, it wasn’t thought out and it’s a mistake. That’s the big thing to do, admit it and back down.”
Earlier this week, Mr Miliband approved Britain’s largest solar farm to date, which will cover 2,000 football pitches’ worth of prime farmland 40 miles from his Doncaster North constituency.
Tillbridge Solar Farm, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, was opposed by Lincolnshire county council and district councils, with opponents objecting to the destruction of farmland.
Clarkson said in December he’d be a “terrible, hopeless” political leader – but pollsters claimed he could become Britain’s answer to Donald Trump.
James Kanagasooriam, a pollster, said at the time: “If Jeremy Clarkson entered politics now – it could be Britain’s Trump moment – but far more English and less authoritarian”.
