Jason Manford quits The One Show

Comedian Jason Manford has quit as co-presenter of The One Show, four months after taking on the role. The BBC has "accepted" his resignation. He got into a bit of hot water about "flirting" with people online. People who had got in touch with the programme. This was not during the show, but on Twitter. He agreed that some things had gone "too far". So he's quit.

I don't really watch this show, although it is popular with my children. What he did off air is his business and probably the BBC's. However, I hardly think it affects the viewers. Accept to say that the Sun got in on the act. So, I suppose, with press coverage, he was a bit tarnished from a presenter's position.

The problem I have with all this is that there are double standards. I've grown up with BBC Television. When I was little Christopher Trace got dumped from Blue Peter because he was divorced. Janet Ellis got pregnant without being married and there was a hullabaloo. Yet others stayed who had strayed. Over the years some get the boot, some get the booty. None of it seems fair or rational. It is just transitory justice according to the whims and fancies of the day. Jonathan Ross came back with his tale between his hands, seemingly none the worse for a transgression that offended many. Is it money talking more than morals? Or is it a case that if the money doesn't talk, your morals get the going over?

The one thing that shines out of this is that Jason Manford's wife has seen it all as a silly event. She was disappointed, but she and her husband are together. The hand that rocks the cradle, eh?

Posted in: BBC,Jason Manford,One Show