Why shouldn’t BBC staff express opinions?

There was a kind of peak BBC Radio 4 moment last week when the network put on a play called Bess Loves Porgy. As you might have guessed, this was a rewrite of Porgy and Bess, the twist being that Porgy was a black, disabled grime rap artist in south London. I hope it went down well with the millions of black, disabled grime rap artists in south London who are listeners to Radio 4.

The network was, in the same week, continuing its serialisation of Georges – ‘Testament’s bold new adaptation of Alexander Dumas’ tale of racial intolerance’. They are absolutely obsessed with racism at R4, in a kind of mentally unhinged manner.

I thought about these two plays while the ludicrous Garygate saga was playing out in the national media – and it made me tetchy and irritable. You see, Gary Lineker is not the point. Georges is the point – and all the other right-on tendentious woke guff this station rams down the throats of its patient listeners.