Jeremy Clarkson branded 'deluded' over BBC move

Broadcaster Stuart Hall has criticised Jeremy Clarkson as "deluded" for saying he would rather quit Top Gear than move north with the BBC.

Clarkson, 51, described Salford, Greater Manchester, earlier this month as a "small suburb with little to offer beyond a Starbucks and a canal with ducks".

He wrote in his Sunday Times column: "Every year we'd end up making a Christmas special from the Dog and Duck or the nearest Arndale Centre" and vowed to "resign in a heartbeat" if asked by the BBC to move there.

The BBC has decided to move five departments to Salford Quays from London, but has no plans to relocate the Top Gear team.

Former It's A Knockout presenter Hall, 81, wrote in the Radio Times: "Clarkson is deluded."

The BBC Radio 5 live sports commentator wrote: "Does he imagine that at the advance of effete southerners, we retreat to our outside lavatories with ripped-up copies of the News of the Screws?

"That in our back-to-back terraces we ply uncle Fred with chitterlings, chunks, bangers and chips, sit him in a commode, chamberpot handy, an ashtray full of dog ends, a basketful of empty tinnies and pretend he's dying through lack of care?"

Hall, born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, added: "Manchester is booming, the financial sector deals with the world. Our scientists lead. Manchester is a seat of knowledge, a breeding ground for brains."