Guido can exclusively reveal the leaked line-up for the launching-in-the-summer Times Radio. After six years on the BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, Aasmah Mir (who has been widely expected to be joining the new venture) will be co-presenting the new station’s staple Breakfast show alongside Stig Abell. The line-up looks like it is tilted towards a very middle class, Remainer Radio 4 audience…

Abell and Mir will be joined on the station by the BBC’s John Pienaar, The Times’ Matt Chorley, the BBC’s Phil Williams, the BBC’s Carole Walker, and Mariella Frostrup, who in 2005 was voted the sexiest female voice on television. The full daily line-up is:

• Breakfast – Stig Abell & Aasmah Mir
• 10 am – Matt Chorley
• 1 pm – Mariella Frostrup
• Drivetime – John Pienaar
• 7pm – Phil Williams
• 10pm – Carole Walker

Congratulations to Stig on winning the plum breakfast slot. As the station’s launch editor that must have been a really tough interview process. No sign so far of heavily tipped to join Tom Newton Dunn.

UPDATE 27/04: The Times announces this morning Cathy Newman is also on board to anchor their Friday drivetime show, and Radio 4’s World at One’s Luke Jones will co-present Friday-to-Sunday breakfast with Panorama’s Jenny Kleeman.

In a statement on Twitter, BBC News Deputy Political Editor John Pienaar has announced that he is jumping ship to the soon-to-be-launched Times Radio.

“after nearly three decades at the BBC I am leaving to join the soon-to-be-launched Times Radio as Drive Time presenter.”

The BBC failed to challenge an on-air racial slur against Sajid Javid yesterday, with John Pienaar instead nervously laughing along after left-wing comedian Shazia Mirza called the first ethnic minority chancellor a “coconut“. The term used against BAME people who are said to have ‘betrayed their race’; with them depicted as ‘brown on the outside, white on the inside’…

Mizra has repeatedly used the slur against Saj, writing last year:

“Some people think the term ‘coconut’ is brazenly racist. It could be, depending on the way that it’s used. When I refer to Sajid Javid as a coconut, I am not referring to his skin colour; I am referring to his lack of loyalties and patriotism towards a group of people from the same background.”

Which sounds to Guido like she is referring to his race…

Last year Saj felt forced to hit out against a torrent of left-wing racial slurs including ‘coconut‘ and ‘uncle Tom‘, demanding that Jeremy Corbyn denounce supporters of his who repeatedly sling them at him.

Mizra view does seem to be isolated, with people on all sides of the political spectrum condemning the phrase. Pienaar, however, chose to chuckle along rather than challenge the targeted slur. Why?