Search: Carol Thatcher
The BBC has received another 1,100 complaints in the space of a day about dropping Carol Thatcher from The One Show, as London mayor Boris Johnson joined in the criticism.
On Thursday, the corporation said it had received a total of 2,245 complaints about the decision to axe Thatcher, but the tally has now reached 3,348. The number of messages backing the BBC had more than doubled from Thursday, rising from 60 to 133.
The former prime minister's daughter was dropped from the programme after she referred to a tennis player as a "golliwog" during a conversation in the green room, where the production team and guests were gathered after the show was over.
Mr Johnson, who has been a regular guest on BBC programmes such as Have I Got News For You, said she should simply have been taken aside and spoken to about her language. "I don't think she should have been fired," he told LBC 97.3 radio's Nick Ferrari At Breakfast show.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
"I think the way to deal with it if someone says something a bit offensive in a green room and you are the producer of the show and everybody else has taken umbrage and feels uncomfortable - which is what happened, as I understand it - then you take that person on one side and you say 'Listen, you've got to understand we've all got to work together and you've got to watch what you say and you've got to be sensitive'.
"But I don't think you fire someone, I really don't."
Mr Johnson's remarks were sharply criticised by Jennette Arnold, a Labour member of the London Assembly. "The symbolism of the golliwog is colonialist, racist and harks back to time when black people were dismissed as slave, servant, and figures of fun. It is an image associated with the demeaning of black people," she said.
"There are no second chances when anyone in public life uses such offensive language and I find it hard to believe that the Mayor doesn't understand this. He should engage his brain and think about the people he represents, speaks for and is supposed to defend, before he opens his mouth."
A spokesman for the mayor said: "He emphasised Carol Thatcher's comments were clearly offensive and unacceptable and that she should have been advised accordingly by the BBC. However the mayor made it clear that he finds it hard to justify firing someone for an off-air remark."
On Thursday night, pop star Will Young said the BBC "panicked" in its decision to axe Thatcher. Speaking on the BBC's Question Time, the 30-year-old politics graduate said: "I don't think it's the right decision. I feel sorry for the BBC because there's a culture of timidity and they really don't know which way to turn."
