I love the BBC, but Question Time host Fiona Bruce’s appalling treatment of Diane Abbott undermines trust in one of the world’s greatest news organisations.

The new host of the flagship discussion show is said to have mocked, off camera, a black woman enduring terrible racist misogyny, then, with an ignorant intervention, triggered audience ridicule as we watched at home.

It puts the public service broadcaster in crisis.

The BBC’s authority and legitimacy, in a fractured Britain, are under the gravest strain since it disgracefully acted as the official mouthpiece for a Tory Government during the 1926 General Strike.

So to refuse an on-air apology is the hubristic obstinacy of a corporation digging itself into a deeper hole.

Abbott must be scrutinised and held accountable like any other politician, but the BBC inadvertently legitimised the awful hounding of the most abused MP in Westminster, rape and death threats depressingly regular because of her heritage and gender.

The mealy-mouthed admission that Bruce blundered by agreeing with Brextremist Isabel Oakeshott’s incorrect assertion that Labour was “way behind in the polls” isn’t good enough.

A supposedly impartial host undermined Abbott’s accurate “we are kind of level-pegging” retort with her glibly erroneous dig that Corbyn’s lot were “definitely” behind.

Why Labour are not streets ahead in the polls is a frequent criticism of mine, though the party has accurately pointed out that it has recently led in as many as it has been behind in.

Bruce must also be made to explain why, according to Labour’s count, she interrupted Abbott 21 times and Tory minister Rory Stewart just nine and the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman only eight

The row over what Bruce said about Abbott before filming, including claims she suggested the MP owed a seat in the Shadow Cabinet to a past relationship with Corbyn, could be resolved immediately by releasing unbroadcast footage.

When internet “fake news” is the enemy of the truth, the BBC would be stronger owning its mistakes instead of ducking responsibility.

I can live with the broadcaster’s establishment bias and tire of wilder partisan attacks from Left and Right.

Andrew Neil is the media’s best interviewer by miles, and I recently intervened outside Parliament to defend BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg from a threatening mob.

It is as a critical friend of the BBC that I urge it to apologise formally and fulsomely to Abbott.

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