The BBC’s odd sense of priorities

This downturn is going to feel awfully long if everyone is to be banned from having a laugh during it. The Sunday Times reports today that Robert Peston was pulled from Have I Got News For you because, according to a source close to the programme, “The producers were told it wouldn’t be right for somebody in a position of trust to be seen laughing in the current economic circumstances”. Now, I know the current situation is serious and some families might lose their home. But it is not equivalent to some natural disaster that has claimed thousands of lives and should not be treated as such.

What makes this decision all the more absurd is that the BBC is happy for Peston to report on George Osborne and the Deripaska affair without mentioning that Osborne’s office is supporting a Serious Fraud Office investigation into who Peston’s sources have been on various recent stories.