From today's papers...

Though regarding BBC Radio 4's afternoon plays as "vital" for our national culture, especially in a time of lockdown, that doyenne of radio critics Gillian Reynolds, writing in The Sunday Times today, admits that "plays that don't preach, accuse or induce guilt" are "hard to find" some days. 

"Radio 4's afternoon drama often sounds as if it's coming from a pulpit", she writes. "Race, class, gender: You will find lectures on them all here."

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The Mail on Sunday reports that Jeremy Clarkson has turned down new DG's Tim Davie appeal for him to return to the BBC, accusing the BBC of no longer being interested in broadcasting a variety of views, and freezing out presenters who failed to be politically correct:

Jeremy Clarkson: He [Tim Davie] was saying the other day, 'Oh, come home'. But the truth is, you'd struggle on the BBC now. It's so unbelievably right on. You just couldn't say anything which I make my living from saying.

How intriguing that Tim Davie tried to bring Jeremy Clarkson back to the BBC though! At least someone at the BBC doesn't want to freeze him out.

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The Martin Bashir affair is getting a lot of coverage in the papers this weekend. Accusations of a cover-up by the BBC over how Mr Bashir obtained his interview with Princess Diana are deepening. Lords Hall and Birt have been now dragged into it. It's still a remarkable thing that Martin Bashir was brought back in from the cold again by the BBC in 2016 and made, of all things, the corporation's Religion editor.