The current and latest (of oh so many) scandal to hit the BBC is ‘presentergate’. A nameless (so far) ‘top’ BBC presenter was paying a young man, arguably and allegedly, a ‘boy’, when the saga began, for naughty images or videos, in exchange for quite a lot of money.

I won’t speculate who this ‘presenter’, now suspended by the Beeb, might be. That would be presumptuous and ungentlemanly. I have a very strong adherence to the presumption of innocence and thus will refrain from entering into the ‘but who could it be???’ debate. Everyone has the inalienable right to present their case and defend their integrity. Even Welshmen. Not that I’m sayin’…

The young man was paid 35 thousand pounds over three years for lewd type images sent to the presenter. So said young man’s mum. Enough money that the kid developed a serious crack addiction. As you would?

Note for any other ‘presenters’ out there: I’ll send you lewd selfies for 20 quid. 30 if you want any dangerous animals involved. (Snakes not included).

But hang on!!! Wait just a moment before crucifying any possible, unnamed and unknown grey-haired news readers, before dismantling the national institution that is the BBC, for failing to act quickly enough about the allegations, because the boy/man in question hath spoken, and in stark contradiction to his mum. Well, his lawyers did, anyway. They said ‘nothing illegal has happened’ and, basically, ‘you can all just fuck off’.

And that’s the interesting bit. The only actual illegality in this is if the boy was indeed 17 when this started. If not, then indeed, ‘nothing illegal has happened’. How a newsreader chooses to spend his money is his business. Morality aside (ok, quite a big ‘aside’, but I try to run my whole life with that disclaimer) if the boy was 18, then its just 2 consenting adults engaged in mutually beneficial sleaze. Nought wrong with that.

What Rita Chakrabarty does with lemmings is no-one’s business but her own. If Clive Myrie engages in an orgy of masochism with 3 whip-wielding dwarves; that’s fine by me. And as for Sophie Raworth…

So no more speculation, no more pre-judging, no more guessing who it might be!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx