The Beeboid peer pinkened to the shade of poached salmon

THERE is a saying ‘when a spin doctor becomes part of the story, it is time to quit’. What about a sketchwriter? Gulp. I first wrote parliamentary columns back when Mrs T was PM and since then have stewed through endless hearings, chewing my cud like Ermintrude. Yesterday I almost bit my cheek. For the first time I became caught in the mangle. Something I had done was raised in proceedings.

It was early afternoon and I had bumbled along to the Commons culture select committee to hear the BBC’s director general, Lord Hall – a Michael aspel lookalike with a plausible manner and inclusive hand gestures – talk about BBC charter renewal.

Having once applied for his job (not entirely in the expectation of success), I do like to keep abreast of BBC matters. The jargon and opacity of our national broadcaster can be magnificent.

Furthermore, it is always a delight to gaze at James Purnell, a former Labour MP and Culture Secretary who has become the BBC’s ‘director, strategy and digital’. For these important duties he is paid an eyes- on- cocktailsticks £295,000 per annum. Mr Purnell was alongside Lord Hall yesterday, his air faintly superior. He had not shaved for days. Executives with ‘digital’ in their job titles can get away with that.

The meeting began slowly. My post- prandial turbines were starting to stall when John Nicolson (SNP, E Dunbartonshire) set about Lord Hall over the inclusion of heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury as a contender for BBC TV’s ‘Sports Personality of the Year’.

This Fury may be mustard with the gloves but his mastery of political correctness is less assured. No sooner had he been put up for the award than it was discovered he had made unappealing comments about women and gay people.

The BBC was aghast. The champ’s views ruptured polite opinion but to remove him from the programme, in which the public votes, would be clumsy. What agony it is sometimes to be an intolerant liberal.

Mr Nicolson, huffing and puffing until he nearly popped, said Fury should be sent packing by the BBC. Lord Hall thought it wiser to let the public have a vote. With a nod to ‘free speech’ he said ‘we are impartial – people’s views should be heard on a range of opinion in all things’.

Ha!Free speech, say ye? a range of opinions should be heard? Electric ping-pong bats for that man on the sketchwriting table. as some of you may know, a few months ago I made a light-hearted Radio 4 programme called ‘What’s The Point Of The Met Office?’ It included comments from two MPs who gently questioned received wisdom on climate change.

The green lobby went tonto. BBC executives had the vapours. an enormous inquiry was launched and I was found guilty of having failed to reflect current scientific opinion. BBC colleagues of mine have since been sent off on re-education courses re. climate change. My programme has now been censored by the nannygoats of the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee. It has been wiped from the internet, liquidated. Jesse Norman (Con, Hereford), committee chairman, reminded Lord Hall of this sorry episode. How did it sit with his lordship’s ‘eloquent talk of the BBC as a place for free speech’? Should the BBC really be censoring ‘ views at odds with conventional wisdom’?

Lord Hall pinkened to the shade of poached salmon. ‘That was a Trust decision,’ he said. Silence. Mr Norman sought further particulars, reminding the Beeboid peer of his ‘ vitally held views on the importance of free speech’. Lord Hall’s cheeks were now ripening nectarines. ‘That was actually a Trust decision,’ he said.

Mr Norman can no doubt ask the BBC Trust’s chairman, Rona Fairhead, about this when she steps before the committee early in 2016.

Meanwhile, Tyson Fury must be counting his luck. If he had Tweeted something rude about climate change, he’d have been kicked off ‘Sports Personality’ before he could insert his gum shield.