HOW much longer are the BBC going to exclude deserving candidates for their annual Sports Personality award? England footballer Beth Mead won this year’s trophy - but where were the likes of US Open golf winner Matt Fitzpatrick, world heavyweight boxing title holder Tyson Fury the Gypsy King, and some of our other world champions? The reason, of course, is that the BBC name their own candidates and there were only six this year. Beth Mead would probably have won it anyway, but that’s not the point.

The BBC used to televise most of the big sporting events, but has lost out to other channels and stations over the years despite sport being so important when it comes to viewing figures. Its news coverage has also taken a step backwards. Who can forget the way it churned out hours and hours of footage of Covid? It must have had a reporter in every hospital in the land. And there were those horrible daily figures of the number of deaths and the number of cases. I would be half way through my fish and chips when I learned of another 100 deaths, and another, and another.

This week it has been the strikes. The Beeb said there would be chaos at airports because of Border Force workers were striking. Sadly for them, there was no such thing. Some air passengers felt, if anything, it was better than normal. Oh dear, how can they get it so wrong.

But, said the BBC, there’s likely to be chaos at UK airports NEXT week. Oh really!