BBC rocked by - Press Awards

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Friday 19 August 2011 evening standard
quote of the day
“Thirty years ago, when Diana and
Charles married, there was a riot.
Now, when Willam and Kate marry,
there’s another riot. I think they
should ban royal qeddings”
Andrew Morton speaking to the Hampstead
and Highgate Literary Festival
BBC rocked by
‘socks in the
fridge’ scandal
Is this the biggest scandal to rock
the BBC since the 45 minutes WMD
controversy? A witch-hunt is under way
to discover who has been leaving their
socks in the office fridge shared by the
Today programme, World at One and
PM.
“Sorry to be the one to have to send
this email but I found another pair of
socks in the fridge this evening,” writes
a BBC producer in an email to colleagues. “I put them next to the box of
batteries.
“I am genuinely sorry if the person
doing this has a medical condition. I’m
not trying to be mean. Have you considered a coolbag? You can get them
fairly cheap on Amazon,” he adds
including a link to them. “But please
stop putting your socks in the fridge.
It’s just plain gross.”
Whom the socks belong to remains a
mystery but the list of potential
suspects could stretch as far up the
ranks as PM presenter Eddie Mair,
Today’s John Humphrys and Evan
Davis (nicknamed Tinsel Tits on
account of his alleged nipple rings) and
Potential suspects: Today’s Evan Davis
and The World at One’s Martha Kearney
The World at One’s Martha Kearney.
Sockgate, as it is being dubbed, has
been seen as indicative of declining
standards in the last days of the BBC at
White City before its move to the newly
refurbished Broadcasting House. Mice
have also been spotted.
However, some have shrugged off the
socks as just part of a long history of
eccentricity within the corporation.
One BBC radio presenter tells me he
once found a biography of Benjamin
Disraeli in that very same fridge.
Which ex-PM endorsed the
Equatorial Guinea coup?
EX-MERCENARY Simon Mann is
shortly to publish Cry Havoc, covering
the botched Equatorial Guinea coup of
March 2004.
Publisher John Blake has been
making some intriguing claims in
advance of publication, including the
following promotional blurb: “The
plot had the tacit approval of Western
intelligence agencies and, according to
Mann, the backing of a European
government and the endorsement of a
former British prime minister.”
The European government referred
to is almost certainly that of Spain.
The ex-British PM could only be Blair
or Thatcher. There is evidence
suggesting both had advance warning.
In November 2004, then Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw revealed in a
parliamentary answer that the British
government was first informed of the
plot “in late January 2004” — weeks
before it happened. Blair later denied
having any advance knowledge of it.
Meanwhile Thatcher’s son, Sir Mark,
who helped bankroll the plot
(unwittingly, he claims) introduced his
mother to Mann before it went ahead.
Adam Roberts, author of The Wonga
Coup, tells me: “Mann has met Lady
Thatcher a few times in South Africa
and elsewhere and sat next to her at a
dinner so there’s a chance he can claim
he asked what she thought of the coup.
It could be one or the other.”
Usshering herself into the sunset
Kitty Ussher has made a
plaintive visit to the
Londoner’s Diary inbox.
“Hi there, thanks so
much for the mention in
today’s diary,” wrote the
former Treasury
minister yesterday
about my story that
she was quitting as
the director of
Demos after just 12
months, announced in a flurry of
platitudes by the think-tank.
“It may help you to know that I
decided to resign my post when the
restructuring plan I was convinced
was necessary was rejected by the
board of Demos. But I wish the
organisation well, and lots of
other similar platitudes. Kitty.”
At least her time at the
think-tank hasn’t dulled her
sense of humour.