''Amol The Righteous''

I think it's safe to say that the Daily Mail's Amanda Platell isn't pleased with the BBC. Her Saturday column this week is headlined How the BBC's golden boy Amol Rajan conned me into royal hatchet job.

As well as calling the first part of his documentary The Princes and the Press “a hatchet job on the Palace and the Press...and a hagiography of Harry and Meghan”, she says she “submitted” herself to “at least two hours of filmed conversation with Rajan” but found it “reduced to less than two minutes of selective quotes”. She says she “felt utterly conned”, and feels even more sorry for the Royal Family.

 

It has to be said that The New Statesman's Rachel Cooke isn't overly sympathetic towards Amanda's plight, writing:

These [royal] correspondents have all walked straight into Rajan’s trap. He was the editor of the Independent, they must have thought, he’ll understand, he’ll listen, he’ll take me seriously.

She suspects him of “laughing at them inwardly” [e.g. “at Amanda Platell of the Daily Mail trying to sound cute rather than just plain bitchy”].

But she continues, pondering...:

...how on Earth to explain Rajan’s own, no less comical mode? 

He seems to doubt anyone watching could have even the vaguest grasp not only of the basics of journalism, but of the English language itself. “She is a COLUMNIST,” he says, of Platell. “Which means she provides OPINION.” Hammy pauses, disappointed sighs, patronising explanations: he is very good on Today on BBC Radio 4, but here he sounds ridiculous, half-Hercule Poirot and half-Richard Madeley.

Former BBC presenter Libby Purves enjoyed Rachel's piece, tweeting:

Hilarious. And has Amol The Righteous bang to rights as well!!!