The BBC makes careers – it must remind stars like Gregg Wallace it can break them, too

Rather like one of its long-running soaps, hardly a month seems to go by without the BBC developing a new, scandalous storyline – about itself.

As in Ambridge and Albert Square, there’s seemingly always some commotion going on, gossip building on innuendo until, in dramatic fashion, some awful secret tumbles out or a presenter is disgraced. Then, the media village is appalled (though not always surprised); an inquiry is launched and the BBC’s management promises that lessons will be learnt and such things must never, ever happen again. Or at least, until the next episode.

It is only a few weeks since Tim Davie – director general, former Tory councillor and no one’s idea of a “luvvie” – declared that he had “kind of banned” the phrase “talent” when referring to the corporation’s overpaid, front-of-camera personalities. Mr Davie promised a tilt in the balance of power, away from the stars and towards the licence fee payers who expect rather better from the faces they invite into their homes.

The latest challenge to Mr Davie’s new doctrine comes in the unappetising form of Gregg Wallace, one of the BBC’s more versatile frontmen – but unfortunately, so it is suggested, a man with a bit too much front.

As ever, an inquiry is underway – this time, led by lawyers on behalf of the production company sub-contracted to make the MasterChef shows. Mr Wallace denies the allegations laid against him, although he seems to have made matters worse by claiming that a group of “middle-class women of a certain age” were behind them.

A plot twist worthy of EastEnders has Mr Wallace now apologising for those dismissive remarks, his mind perhaps changed by an intervention from No 10 condemning them as “inappropriate” and “misogynistic”. Mr Wallace pleads that he “wasn’t in a good headspace” when he issued his defiant Instagram rebuttal and says he will be taking “time out”.

One of the more disquieting aspects of what has become known recently is that the BBC received complaints about Mr Wallace’s behaviour as far back as 2017 – and he was given a “talking to” by BBC executives in 2018 about his “unacceptable and unprofessional” conduct on the show Impossible Celebrities. Whatever impact this had on Mr Wallace, the impression is that it wasn’t necessarily long-lasting – nor was it followed up.

Perhaps, if it had been, the BBC would not be distracted by yet another falling star, something that its many enemies elsewhere in the media landscape, all with their own conflicted motives, gleefully seized upon as proof that the corporation should be “defunded”. The BBC needs to do better.

It may be that his television career is over, and his remaining appearances are cancelled, whatever the inquiry eventually concludes. “Inappropriate” words or actions may be sufficient to finish him off. In any case, Mr Wallace has certainly done himself no favours with his response to the accusations.

On the other hand, in due course, Mr Wallace may be completely or partially exonerated, with as yet unknown mitigations discovered, and it is unfair to bracket him with the likes of Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards. Yet the fact remains that the present, wider, BBC inquiry into its workplace culture may have more difficult case studies to consider.

MasterChef, and possibly other programmes featuring Mr Wallace, join the varied mix of The Repair Shop, Strictly Come Dancing, Panorama, Top Gear and various Russell Brand past vehicles to have discredited the BBC.

The cases are extremely varied but the one thing that they have in common – from Jeremy Clarkson punching a producerto Jay Blades’ appearance in court on charges of controlling and coercive behaviour towards his wife (he has pleaded not guilty) – is how the power of the presenter and their standards conspire to inflict harm on one of the UK’s few internationally renowned “brands”. As an export earner and projector of “soft power”, the BBC is unsurpassed. It has to be protected, sometimes even from itself.

The BBC, in other words, is far too important for it to be treated as a plaything and abused by the celebrities who owe the broadcaster their careers. Most of them would be nothing without the creative talents and opportunities the BBC lavished on them.

But, as Mr Davie rightly concedes, it is long past time for them to be put firmly in their place; their remuneration adjusted and their misbehaviour no longer indulged. None of them – certainly not Mr Wallace – is bigger than the corporation. It’s time the BBC demonstrated that.

In an era of infantile billionaires spreading malicious propaganda, the BBC as a strong, respected publicly funded broadcaster – with its timeless mission to inform, educate and entertain – is needed more than ever.