Local Tories have managed to get an apology out of the BBC for their use of the term “Bedroom Tax” on BBC Look North.  Economic and Social Affairs Correspondent reporter Jayne Barrett told Pendle Conservatives that she was “told off” by her boss and emailed to asking them to “please accept my apology”. Given the widespread use of the term all over the airwaves, perhaps someone more senior might like to apologise for misleading viewers…

Copious booze, staff nicking mementos and partygoers scoring in the studios; the Beeb’s Television Centre goodbye party sounds like a night to remember. Or, more likely, forget:

At the BBC’s “goodbye TVC party”… did a nostalgic walk of the donut & heard someone shagging in one of the offices. Sackable offence?—
Helen Williamson (@helcatwill) March 21, 2013

In a stairwell at TV Centre, drunk watching Madness. Might smoke indoors. It's that kind of night.—
Julia Raeside (@JNRaeside) March 22, 2013

@KieronMoyles Hahahha. We have bought all the wine we can afford from the bar. A proper wake.—
Julia Raeside (@JNRaeside) March 22, 2013

Meanwhile today half the hacks in the BBC’s swanky new studio are on strike over job cuts. Happy Easter weekend…

Boris has tried the political equivalent of getting his dad over when the other boys in the playground are being mean to him. Stanley Johnson has let rip with Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning:

“I thought Eddie Mair’s interview was about the most disgusting piece of journalism I’ve listened to for a very long time. The BBC sank about as low as it could. If grilling people about their private lives, accusing them of guilt by association and openly abusing them is a legitimate interview, then frankly, I don’t know where we are coming. On the one point, which he started off with, the quote. Well I know about that quote. This was Boris, twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago, ringing up his godfather who was a historian and he got it wrong. He got what the godfather had said wrong and later on, those things happened as a result of that. But good heavens, if that’s the worst you can do, is dig up something thirty years ago. Most journalists I know make up quotes all the time and I don’t think they don’t go down the drain for it.”

Mair’s line of questioning was pretty fair, even if it was all old news. Boris could have dealt with it with minimum fuss by saying all this information was in the public domain when the people of London returned him as Mayor. His line to the Sun this morning was much more like it: “Fair play to Eddie Mair, he landed a good one. If the BBC can’t bash Tory politicians then what is the point of the BBC?” A bad day out which his dad is just making worse…

As Guido revealed in yesterday’s Sun on Sunday column, the Have I Got News For You team are resorting to egg-streme measures to convince Jacob Rees-Mogg to appear on the show. The Beeb have sent the Honourable Member for the 1890s a dozen Cadbury’s creme eggs as a sweetener. They are playing a smart game – the Moggster is addicted to them. How do you eat yours? Old school…

Well worth taking a look at Michael Gove skewer Emily Thornberry on last night’s Question Time just for her facial expressions, from 40 minutes in. She didn’t fare much better on the Daily Politics today either, accusing the government of “starving out” cancer sufferers from their homes:

Thornberry: I met a guy in Lancashire, right, and he lives in a three bedroom house. His wife has recently died, wife has recently died and he has cancer. He is in a three  bedroom house, and they have written to him and they have said unless you move you’re going to lose £80 a month. I am not saying that in the long term it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to move. But basically, to starve him out is not right, and…

Brillo: You’re accusing the coalition of starving him out?

Thornberry: I mean I think this is what happens.

A strong nomination for an Order of the OTT…

Almost in the HMV league…

UPDATE: The BBC are working with Twitter to regain control of the account.

Andrew Neil: Now, there have been many reports that you have leadership ambitions. Do you?

Adam Afriyie: I’m ambitious for the country. I chose to come into politics from a business background, and I’m happy to serve the country in whichever way people would see fit.

AN: Right, there are reports that you have leadership ambitions. Do you?

AA: I’m not ambitious for any position in government or any position at all in the party. What I’m ambitious for is for the British people to get jobs, and you know, to feel proud of their country again. And I think we can have a future like that if we concentrate on the policies and actually not the personalities.

AN: Let’s just put this to bed. Because they write about you all the time. For the avoidance of doubt, and to put the issue to bed, do you want to lead your party one day?

AA: I have no ambition to lead my party and I have no ambition for any particular position. I’m ambitious for Britain to be back on top, to be a global trading nation, and all of my efforts and the efforts of my team around me, all of those efforts are focused on trying to deliver those policies that will Britain on top again.

AN: So you would rule out leading the Conservatives?

AA: I think you’re asking the same question in so many different ways and I’ve given you my answer.

AN: It’s because I’m trying to get an answer.

AA: You’ve had an answer. I’m not ambitious for position at all.

AN: So you rule out being leader of the Conservatives, there is no leadership campaign behind you, correct, in any way? You haven’t got a small group of supporters pushing your interest?

AA: I’m working with a large group of Conservative MPs to make sure we have a Conservative Britain that is trading with the world, that is outward looking and is addressing its relationship with Europe so that your viewers can feel confident that they’re going to get jobs and they’re going to do well in this country.

Painful…

As this afternoon’s tape piles the pressure on Mark Thompson, Tory MP Rob Wilson tells Guido:

“Mark Thompson’s story has changed on several occasions since he first wrote to me saying he knew nothing about the Jimmy Savile allegations. The Pollard Review accepted his account. This recording and the Helen Boaden solicitor’s letter to the BBC cast a dark cloud over Thompson’s version of events. Pollard and the BBC must now reveal all the evidence as I have requested in my recent letters to them. Both the integrity of the enquiry and the BBC is at stake as is the reputation of Mark Thompson.”

This one will run…

Ninety seconds of audio released by The Times media correspondent Ben Webster has undone former BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s evidence to both Parliament and the Pollard Review over what he knew about Savile. The damning tape from an interview last October has Thompson admitting that he knew the fateful Newsnight investigation was into Savile and about “sexual abuse of some kind”. Fast forward to 9.15:

In a letter to Tory MP Rob Wilson on 23 October 2012 Thompson said he “never heard any allegations or received any complaints about Jimmy Savile”. On 21 January 2013 Thompson again denied knowledge of the Savile scandal during his time running the BBC. As Guido exclusively revealed, Thompson told John Whittingdale, chairman of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, that “neither Caroline Hawley…nor the leadership of BBC News told me what the investigation had been about.” Really?

This recording comes to light just two weeks after it was revealed by Miles Goslett in the Sunday Times that Helen Boaden, outgoing head of BBC News, asked her lawyer to write to Nick Pollard 12 weeks ago clarifying that she told Thompson in a telephone call on or around December 21, 2011 that Newsnight’s investigation was about child abuse.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that this Webster interview proves that Thompson knew that Newsnight had investigated Savile for child abuse in 2011 and yet still allowed the BBC to broadcast lavish tribute programmes to him that Christmas. Over the ensuing nine months – while Thompson was trying to secure his new job at the New York Times – he maintained he knew nothing about Newsnight’s Savile inquiry. This looks a lot like a smoking gun…

Channel 4 News editor Ben De Pear has been venting his frustration at the BBC in no uncertain terms this afternoon.

“So as the BBC release a publicly funded report into a public body the acting DG of the BBC will only be interviewed by the BBC about the BBC. In my time as a TV journalist I have been offered interviews with the following people produced by their own organisations; President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran, President Charles Taylor of Liberia, & Tim Davie of the BBC. We got Mugabe and Ahmedinejad ourselves but not Taylor & turned down his offer of self interview; we are still trying for Tim Davie.”

Now he’s taking the fight to Evan Davis:

Our interview with Tim Davie of the BBC tonight: ███ ████ █████ ███ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ███ █ ████ █████ ███ ████.—
  (@bendepear) February 22, 2013

@EvanHD it's great u get to interview your boss, but the BBC is a public institution funded by the public & should therefore be scrutinised—
  (@bendepear) February 22, 2013

Quite…