Boo. Monty Don is retiring in a couple of years as presenter of Gardener’s World, because it’s getting to be a slog and a treadmill. But he’s already doing his bit to influence the BBC’s choice of his successor. He told Times Radio that he thought the show needed more diversity – and that the BBC should think ‘ten times’ before picking an Oxbridge-educated middle-aged man again as its lead presenter:
‘In a truly just and fair society, we wouldn’t care what someone’s colour or race or creed or sex was. But the truth is that it’s much more delicate. And I think that I’m absolutely persuaded that in order to include everybody, you have to open doors that either are or seem to be shut. And if the door is perceived to be shut then it is shut even if actually you think it’s not.’
When it comes to gardening on telly, what we really want is someone magnificently dictatorial
As a would-be gardener, I can’t think of anything I want less than more diversity.
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