STEPHEN GLOVER: Daft police, an asinine stunt and the question: Is it time to put Top Gear out of its misery? 

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Top Gear is the BBC’s most watched show by far, with a global audience of 350 million people in more than 200 countries. It is also seriously lucrative, bringing the Corporation at least £50 million a year in much-needed income.

Yet, though Top Gear is the BBC’s brightest jewel, it goes against the grain of the Beeb. Auntie likes to be socially conscious and responsible. But the show is a raucous, politically incorrect celebration of fast cars and the asinine culture of boy racers.

Under the leadership of Jeremy Clarkson — who was dropped last year after he punched a junior producer —the show was just about kept in check. Now under new management, it threatens to spin widely out of control. No pun intended.

Controversy: A public row broke out after a Top Gear car was pictured carrying out stunts near the Cenotaph

Near miss: This video still shows how a Ford Mustang carrying Matt LeBlanc drove close to the Cenotaph

The BBC appeared relieved to see the back of the Right-wing and often reactionary Clarkson, an alien spirit in its enlightened domain. But, my oh my, in Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc it seems to have acquired two even more anarchic presenters who have already landed the Beeb in hot water.

Where is the most unsuitable place in all of Britain for Matt LeBlanc’s souped-up Mustang to practise spins? Probably around the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The war memorial is sacred. Definitely not a place for billowing exhausts and screeching tyres.

So Matt LeBlanc — a somewhat louche character who made his name in soap opera Friends — hared down Whitehall and was driven around the Cenotaph in his high-powered car, doing ‘doughnuts’ and leaving so much rubber on the road that the BBC will have to pay to have it removed.

Let us leave aside for the moment the question of why part of the centre of our great capital city should be closed to make way for such childish antics, allegedly disturbing the Chancellor, who was labouring over his Budget speech at No 11.

And let us also temporarily suspend our wonderment that this presumptuous American petrol-head should have been accompanied by a posse of police motorcyclists who, of course, had nothing better to do, such as nabbing criminals. Come to think of it, they should have slapped a pair of handcuffs on LeBlanc’s wrists for disturbing the peace.

No, even more pressing than these conundrums is the mystery of how our revered national broadcaster can have been party to such a piece of tomfoolery. How could this have happened?

Screeching: The car did a handbrake turn in the middle of Whitehall, throwing up a cloud of smoke

Stars: Top Gear hosts Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc pictured in the days after the Cenotaph controversy

There’s not much point in blaming Matt LeBlanc or Chris Evans (who has been forced to apologise for the caper) since they are a couple of overgrown schoolboys who make Jeremy Clarkson seem statesmanlike.

We COULD with more justification pick on Katie Taylor, the BBC’s entertainment chief, who is responsible for Top Gear, though the Corporation claims she did not authorise the stunt. I’d certainly like to hear an apology from her, and some explanation of why it was thought a good idea to race around Whitehall.

But it seems to me the real culprit is the BBC hierarchy, which held its nose while Clarkson and sidekicks James May and Richard Hammond made it hundreds of millions of pounds from their zany and irreverent panegyric to motor cars.

For all his loutishness, Clarkson did bring a kind of rogueish charm to Top Gear, as well as an amusing irony. He certainly got the BBC into some scrapes — attracting charges of racism and inflaming locals in Argentina by sporting a number plate that was believed by them to be a provocative reference to the Falklands War.

My point is that the programme flourished not because of the BBC, but in spite of it. Clarkson and his producer Andy Wilman (a mate from public school) were given free rein, and Auntie counted her cash.

Anger: Westminster City Council says the BBC had said they would only be driving down Whitehall and said the corporation will now have to pay for the clear-up costs

Crowds of onlookers: Top Gear co-host Matt LeBlanc drives along the Mall with five police bikes in tow for the filming of the new Top Gear

After a time, though, Clarkson’s politically incorrect misbehaviour began to rankle with Corporation executives, and when he threw a punch at Oisin Tymon, they seized their opportunity and did not renew his contract. (Clarkson recently paid Tymon a settlement of £100,000, of which — outrageously — the licence-payer stumped up a portion.)

The problem is that Clarkson, his two co-presenters and Andy Wilman were the guiding spirits behind Top Gear. For better or worse, it was their show, not the BBC’s. And now that the Beeb is at last in charge of the clattering train, it hasn’t got the faintest idea of what to do with it.

It is proceeding with all the lumbering predictability of a committee of suits. First item: Chris Evans, a wacky disc jockey and car nut who used to scandalise decent people, but has gone straighter in middle age and hosts Radio 2’s breakfast show. Second item: Matt LeBlanc, whose handsome face is recognised worldwide, owing to his long-running sitcom.

Light hearted: Mr LeBlanc hasn't let the row get to him as he joked with stunt driver Ken Block before getting in the Mustang clutching a map of London

Item Three would ideally have been a luscious and leggy actress with blonde hair, but in the end the BBC has had to settle for Sabine Schmitz, a fairly obscure German racing driver, who is, however, blonde.

On the evidence of what took place in Whitehall, LeBlanc and Evans are even less ‘unpredictable’ than Clarkson and his cronies. Masters of poor taste they may have often been, but I don’t believe that the old Top Gear team would have done such a crass and silly thing.

But the BBC’s difficulty is that it has grabbed hold of a once money-spinning programme it doesn’t properly understand and in which many managerial hopes and a great deal of cash are being invested.

If it thought about it for a moment, the Beeb might realise how uneasily the show’s values sit with those of our supposedly serious-minded national broadcaster, part of whose remit is to make elevated programmes that might not be supplied by the commercial sector.

Should the BBC really be extolling ‘doughnutting’ on any public road, let alone Whitehall, with the police in respectful attendance? Such practices would be lethal if copied by ordinary drivers. It’s odd to see the Corporation celebrating naked speed and suicidal driving, though it has now said it won’t use this actual footage.

My bet is that Top Gear’s new presenters will make the show more puerile and appeal increasingly to the lowest common denominator — in short, to the pretty moronic segment of society. I suspect the BBC will find the programme brings them more embarrassment than plaudits, and very likely less money than it is bargaining for.

As for the police and Army — soldiers were photographed with the idiotic Matt LeBlanc and his Mustang at a photo-shoot in Woolwich — it beggars belief that they should be so eager to be associated with these infantile antics. We may live in a star-struck age that is in thrall to celebrity, but police chiefs and senior Army officers should put an end to such nonsense.

Clarkson’s Top Gear team are, of course, producing their own version of the programme for Amazon, for which they are being paid zillions. Earlier this week, he, May and Hammond were photographed looking relaxed on location in North Africa, where they have been filming, with Andy Wilman doubtless rubbing his hands in the wings.

Whoever wins this worldwide ratings battle — and my money is firmly on Clarkson and Co —the BBC stands to lose a great deal in terms of damage to its good name. Top Gear has had a good run. The time has surely come for the BBC to put it out of its misery.