My part in Iain Duncan Smith’s sullen, sarcastic and ill-tempered outburst

Iain Duncan Smith and his party have thrown two big wobblies about BBC coverage in recent weeks. One episode occurred in the small hours of Friday 2 May when David Dimbleby compered BBC Television’s local- election-night programme. The other unfolded last Sunday lunchtime on Radio Four’s The World This Weekend as the presenter, James Cox, took a look at the Tories’ post-local-election prospects.

Iain Duncan Smith is furious about both broadcasts. As it happens, they have something in common: me.

But in each case I was little more than a chance witness. Hardly seen by the Tory leader as an exceptionally fearsome creature, I will feature in these complaints as no more than symptomatic of what the Tories think is wrong with the BBC. The Conservative party is right to feel occasionally niggled, wrong to think itself uniquely abused, right to keep up the pressure on the Corporation, but very wrong to let the leader himself get into scraps he should rise above.