The BBC was in chaos last night after racism allegations forced its flagship-programme Crimewatch to be suspended. Kirsty Young, the beautiful Arian blonde poached from Channel 5 to front the show, said she was shocked and saddened by the BBC’s sudden decision to pull the programme. However, her co-presenter, Matthew Amroliwala, added,

“This came as no surprise to me. I’ve been expecting it ever since we went to the new format”.

Allegations centre on the way the programme features so many foreign and ethnic criminals, particularly black and asian men. Indeed, one insider told us that they account for at least 80% of the crimes and “mugshots” in every edition. Jeremy Paxman, the Newsnight anchor, appeared to attack the programme, saying:

“With these skewed figures, regular Crimewatch viewers would think that every black or asian man is a criminal”.

But, he went on to say,

“With blacks knocking each other off on every street corner and asians doing most of the fraud and all of the terrorism, what else can you do?”

As it emerged that the programme is abandoning its current format, producers were at pains to point out that they are working hard to revamp the show. A senior manager told us:

“We intend to still concentrate on the worst and most shocking crimes, but are looking at how we can conceal the ethnic origins of the perpetrators. If they aren’t white that is. Using state of the art technology, we believe that we can mask offenders’ racial origins and, if necessary, we’ll also change any names that are stereotypical. If we don’t do this we’ll simply end up with a boring show full of nonces and burglars”.

It remains to be seen whether it’s possible to run the show successfully in this more politically corrrect manner. In the meantime, licence-payers will be assured in an upcoming broadcast by Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and former television executive and presenter, how important it is that the BBC continues to promote ethnic rights and fight racism.