Save us from the civil service and the BBC

I was asked on to the BBC Today programme — my old manor — last week to talk about the Women’s World Cup. The producers had noticed that I’d changed my mind about the event and now thought it all rather good fun, having hitherto been derisively misogynistic. ‘This is the thing,’ I said to them. ‘You only invite social conservatives on when they’ve come around to your way of thinking and stopped being social conservatives. Why don’t you ask me on to talk about banning abortion, deporting all foreigners and sectioning the trannies?’ I agreed to the football chat, a little reluctantly, but told the chap that the item would be dropped approximately 11 minutes before it was due on air. This is exactly what happened, as it usually does with Today.

They are not the worst offenders, however. I was once flown to Edinburgh at your expense to take part in Question Time and they binned me an hour before the show with the words: ‘I’m really sorry — but we’ve got George Galloway, you see.’