Groan.

From early in the piece:

Broadcaster Sandi Toksvig has said the BBC refused to make her the original host of Have I Got News For You because she is a woman, it was revealed today.

The 57-year-old comedian said she was asked to audition for the role 25 years ago but despite liking her more management chose Angus Deayton instead because he is a man.

She said: ‘They made two pilots – one with me and one with Angus Deayton. I was told by the producers that they preferred my version, but the channel decided they couldn’t have a woman in charge.’

Firstly, a point about the shoddy journalism at the end of the first paragraph. ‘… it was revealed yesterday’ clearly implies the journalist accepted the veracity of Sandi Toxic’s claims, while ‘… it was claimed’ would have made more sense. Shame on the (male) journalist.

To accept the account of events of Ms Toxic, the person who’s won two ‘Lying Feminist of the Month’ awards in the space of just three months, we have to believe:

The BBC went to the cost and effort of making two pilots, despite not being prepared to have a woman present the show.

Her version was preferred by the producers, and they told her so.

Is it not more credible that the BBC made two pilots in good faith, Angus Deayton’s pilot was better, but producers told Ms Toxic they preferred her version, to spare her feelings? Heaven forbid she might be expected to handle the truth… as a 32-year-old at the time.

More and more supporters are telling me they’ve given up on the BBC. They’ve stopped paying the licence fee, and in future they’ll catch what they value of BBC TV output – such as nature documentaries – on iPlayer. It makes sense to me.

The BBC – especially with respect to its news and comedy programmes – has become a feminist-driven embarrassment, with even senior men demanding that producers include token women on comedy panel shows, where they rarely perform well, given so few comediennes excel in that environment. It’s embarrassing to watch the men on the shows laugh hysterically at mildly amusing comments from the women, as if they were comedy gold. Maybe they’re paid a bonus for pretending to be so amused, who knows? But it makes for grim viewing.

It can be instructive to watch old episodes of some panel games on Dave, with all-male panels. The panellists sink or swim on the strength of their abilities, and the result is a damned sight more funny than politically correct gender-balanced panels.

The funniest comedy series on the BBC today is Dad’s Army. The last episode was broadcast in 1977 – 38 years ago.