Auntie’s always had it in for Cliff

SIR Cliff Richard is seeking millions in damages after the BBC colluded with South Yorkshire police to film a raid on his Berkshire home in 2014.

This was part of a historical sex abuse inquiry, which later found the 76-yearold star has no charges to answer.

It has been a torrid time for the singer, who one hopes is marginally comforted by the prospect of eventually having his day in court.

However, it does once more underline the fact that the BBC has a very strange attitude towards celebrities. Or shall we say, some celebrities.

At the top of the pyramid of fame, the BBC nurtures a favoured few stars who are petted and cosseted as if they were mating pandas, then put forward for every plum project going. It promotes them and becomes obsessed with them, while everyone else just has to take their chances on the slippery showbiz ladder.

The raid on Sir Cliff ’s home was filmed live and broadcast to millions. Helicopters filmed from above, a reporter was posted at the gate, no detail was left to the imagination.

But ask yourself this: can you imagine the BBC doing the same thing to Stephen Fry? Unthinkable. Miranda? Impossible. Clare Balding or Gary Lineker? Unimaginable. Chris Evans? He could and does get away with everything, including a botched Top Gear relaunch and slipping audience figures on his Radio 2 breakfast show. St Benedict of Cumberbatch? Oh my goodness, the very thought!

But Sir Cliff? Someone in the chain of command seemed to have assumed he was fair game. For a start, he is chronically unfashionable. He is a devout Christian, a tennis-loving do-gooder who is not on news chief James Harding’s Christmas card list and is never knowingly invited to one of Alan Yentob’s Glastonbury cocktail parties.

As far as they are concerned, his music is passé and his fans are middle-aged, middle-class and quite possibly boring. Certainly, Cliff, pictured, does not appeal to the audience of picky millennials whom the BBC hungers to appease and entertain.

So, just like Tony Blackburn — this month celebrating a triumphant return to the BBC eight months after he was sacked following an inquest into sexual abuse at the Corporation — he has been treated in a rather cavalier fashion.

Yet the televised raid was only the last wounding in a fractious relationship that stretches back decades. Richard was heartbroken at the original Live Aid concert, when after eagerly volunteering his services he was given only a small slot in the BBC chat room, long after the live show was over. At Christmas 1999, when he released his single The Millennium Prayer — The Lord’s Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne — most BBC stations refused to put it on their playlists, with BBC Radio 2 banning it outright. I recall that more attention was given to pop star George Michael complaining that the single was a ‘vile and heinous piece of music’ that ‘exploited religion’ and made him feel sick. It was up to Richard himself to point out that for most people in the UK, Christmas was still a Christian celebration. Over the years he has had to battle for new records to be on BBC playlists, sometimes having to release songs under a different name to get his music heard. This is despite still enjoying the affection of millions of fans. From then until now, he remains one of the most popular performers in the UK — but as far as the BBC is concerned, he is not the right kind of popular. It doesn’t seem fair.