What is Jeremy Clarkson's accent?

I'm learning to distinguish between the various accents spoken in the UK.

To start off, could someone please tell me what Jeremy Clarkson's accent is?

I would also like to know if Cockney accent is more widely spoken than Received Pronunciation in the UK?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Jeremy Clarkson speaks Geordie.

Cockney accent - ~14 million
RP - ~41 million

Jeremy Clarkson speaks very good English. The Cockney accent is spoken just in some parts of london, it does not get spoken for eg: up north..

ESL Teacher - where did you get those numbers? Wake up man, I think that Cockney was spoken by 100000 - 500000 people... That accent is now dead in London( in its clear form), it was replaced by Inner London Accents like Jafaican or Estuary English plus Jamaican....RP was never spoken by more than 3 - 5 million people around UK... Estuary English could have 15 million users...

Cockney is hardly 'dead'. It's very influential on Estuary etc, people like Lily Allen are adopting this 'Cockney-lite' accent.

RP is, of course, a minority accent, perhaps spoken by 10% at best (all of it's variants, not 'pure RP' if that indeed exists).

And Clarkson's accent sounds to me like a typical Southern British accent, perhaps London or the home counties, but I can't be sure since I don't know his biography.

I'm amazed to realise that some people are even remotely interested in Jeremy Clarkson, but there we go...obviously somebody is, and it ertainly isn't me. Anyway, Clarksson does not come from the South of England, and neither do his parents.....the family roots on both sides are firmly set in South Yorkshire, admittedly, but not to confuse you too much here - South Yorkshire is in the North of England, and South Yorkshire is every bit as "Northern England" as is North Yorkshire.

Clarkson was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, on 11 April 1960 - another Arian, but please do not hold that against me.

The fact that he does not speak with a distinct South Yorkshire (or even a Northern English) accent but instead sports a form of Southern type EERP may, just may, have something to do with his rather wealthy and privileged background - his father is (or was - I'm not aware whether or not he is still in the land of the extant) a prominent businessman in that area, and Clarkson attended Repton School, a well known independent* co-educational school in Derbyshire, which is just to the south west or west of South Yorkshire.

Many people consider Clarkson to be 'ebulliently robust' in his manner, and others consider him to be very unfashionable, rampantly sexist and often both misogynistic and homophobic, equally rampanty anti-American in attitude and comment, and the very epitome of "yobbish" driving. He is downright forthright (even rude) in his opinions in the British press and on TV to the point where some viewers consider him to be either very entertaining and or excessively irritating. I am included in the last category as I don't consider this bloke the type I would like to meet in the Singing Kettle or the Moon and Sixpence pub at any time, and I suspect that the feeling would be mutual once he knew about my own forthright opinions.

*Independent school - fee paying private school totally independent from the State educational system in England.

http://www.repton.org.uk/

He is a bit boorish, smug and opinionated, but I find him entertaining and funny at times.
It's good that not everyone on television is a bland, arse-kissing, politically correct marshmellow.

Who is Jeremy Clarkson and why did I stumble this?

Anon - you are better off not knowing who this man Jeremy Clarkson is, especially if you are American.....no way has he endeared himself to the people of the United States, and it seems as if the feeling is mutual.

I'd rather share a pint and a convo down the pub with the Devil Incarnate or even Gordon Brown than I would with Jermey Clarkson. I wouldn't mind doing the same with Richard Hammond though as he lives not far from my grandparents in Herefordshire.....he even drove a pink sports model through the streets of Ledbury one Satuday morning but declined the offer to switch on Ledbury's town Christmas lights because he was too busy elsewhere - appearing on Top Gear presumably.

Umm, how can somebody give the answer that he has a Geordie accent, and then other person says he has a Southern accent. I would like that people were sure of what they speak before they post in a publsi forum.