Do lorry drivers habitually murder prostitutes? My guess is that only a very small minority of them do, although I have no statistics to support such an assumption. My colleague Jeremy Clarkson recently made a joke about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes on an edition of his BBC show Top Gear and once again all hell has been let loose.

A Labour MP nobody has heard of called Chris Mole demanded that Clarkson be sacked and the BBC was “inundated” with complaints, apparently – not only from Britain’s beleaguered and very real community of prostitutes, but also from many lorry drivers who claim they have never murdered anyone.

Jeremy had not meant his comments to be taken literally, I don’t think – he was making what is known in the entertainment business as a “joke”. Was it a “joke” in bad taste, unacceptable, exceeding the boundaries of what we might expect from a public service broadcaster to whom we pay our licence fee? Yes, of course. Yes, because from here on in, everything is: there are no boundaries any more with the BBC.

In its current incarnation there is nothing the corporation’s employees can do which will not outrage someone, somewhere and lead to some underemployed nonentity of a legislator calling for a sacking, spurred on by the corporation’s many tabloid press enemies.

The BBC responds either by staying shtoom and hoping the furore goes away, or by sacking people and putting out a pompous statement about editorial guidelines and responsibility to which its vast workforce will henceforth adhere. What is certain is that it feels it can offer no coherent and vigorous defence of any of its output because it is not clear what it is there for any more.

It knew that the Ross-Brand farrago was motivated as much by Jonathan Ross’s obscene salary as by the witless prank that he and Russell Brand played upon Andrew Sachs – and it has no intellectual defence of that £18m salary, largely because there isn’t one.

And now: is it in the public interest for a BBC programme to make jokes about prostitutes being murdered; is this what we pay our licence fee for? The answer from the BBC is another apology because it supposes, when it comes down to it, that maybe this isn’t what you pay your licence fee for. It can’t quite remember exactly why you do pay your licence fee, but it knows it probably isn’t for that.

This stuff – the outrage and the evisceration and the tabloid campaigns – will happen every week, without fail, with the corporation’s hapless (if grossly overpaid) executives and talent being picked off, one by one, until the day dawns when suddenly there isn’t a licence fee any more and there isn’t a BBC. Watch this space: every week, without fail, a new attack. Every week the lack of a defence because the BBC does not know what the defence actually should be.

Everything it has done in the wake of the Brand-Ross business has been wrong, from the failure to acknowledge that Ross’s salary was excessive and inappropriate, to the demand from Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC chairman, that there should be more useless middle managers involving themselves in editorial decisions. This will just mean that someone more senior will be sacked next week, rather than the producer of whatever programme raises the collective ire.

I am happy with the notion of paying a licence fee of £139.50; not because it compares favourably with what I might get from Sky for the price (although it does), but because I can still, just about, kid myself that I am paying for a unique service which is not corrupted by the need to chase the commercial ratings.

I think of it as an asset in which we all share because it is a good thing for the country. This is, I suppose, an elitist and patrician view – but right now, worse than that, it does not seem to be a view shared by the BBC.

+ Humourless imbeciles –– there’s a lot of them around. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian president, greeted Barack Obama’s victory by commending him on his “suntan” and was astonished to find people taking offence. God save us from humourless imbeciles, he said. In southern Europe, where they like to call a spade a spade, Berlusconi’s shaft of wit went down very well indeed, people rolling around on the floor clutching their ribs in mirth. “Suntan – ’cos he’s a black bloke, geddit?” Maybe ITV should flog Love Thy Neighbour to all points south of Nice and Perpignan as there’s clearly a market for racism dressed up as humour down there.

Perhaps we are all too sensitive when people invoke our racial origins so light-heartedly. I’m sure Silvio will chuckle along if Obama refers to him, equally light-heartedly, as a pasta-eating, sexually incontinent megalomaniac gangster. No offence, mate – it was just a quip, based upon popularly believed stereotypes of Italian people and obviously bearing not the remotest resemblance to yourself. Humourless imbeciles might take offence, but not Signor Berlusconi.

Nude Bandwagon: the opera

Enough already. The Royal Opera House is the latest institution to demonstrate its utter desperation for publicity by stripping off and waving its privates in our faces – for charidee, natch.

Since those haggard old trouts in some northern branch of the Women’s Institute gained international renown for having dropped their drawers for the cameras, almost every organisation on its uppers has pulled the same stunt in an attempt to get publicity. Who next? The Church of England? Hizb ut-Tahrir? The SNP? Mind you, I suppose it has worked for the ROH, thanks to its minxy Royal Ballet star Sian Murphy.

Council’s next film: Safer Investing

Ever wishing to improve value for money, Kent county council has now produced a special edition DVD telling you how to cross the road. It’s a good idea, the film suggests, to make sure there is absolutely no traffic coming when you step out from the pavement. Traffic might produce an immediate impact-type problem.

How do you ascertain that there is no traffic coming? The crucial thing is for people to “use all their senses”. So when you’re waiting on the kerb, look, listen and sniff the air. Maybe lick the tarmac for those telltale traces of petroleum. The film cost Kent only £15,000 – small change compared with the 50m quid they’ve probably lost through a reckless investment policy. Coming soon from Kent Productions: how to react when you meet an Icelandic banker waving wads of money in the air.

The property slump has claimed another victim. It is harrowing enough for all of us that estate agents are having a tough time of it – now let us mourn the decline of Garrington, the Cheshire property search company, which has seen its business reduce by 60%, been forced to lay off two staff and close one of its offices.

Shocking. And all the more so when you learn that Garrington is owned by Phil Spencer, the hairless presenter of the Channel 4 programme Location, Location, Location, which has urged us all, over the years, to treat our homes as collateral to be traded up at the first opportunity. Preferably for more than they’re worth. So how’s that policy worked out, Phil?

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