The Telegraph’s Mandrake column is claiming a victory of sorts in its campaign to get Ed Stourton reinstated on Radio 4’s Today progrmame.
Stourton told listeners this weekend that he would still appear on the Radio 4 flagship morning news show “from time to time” when he leaves in October to make way for Justin Webb.
A Mandrake petition against his abrupt sacking led to 3,000 signatures, including that of Conde Nast UK managing director Nicolas Coleridge.
A parliamentary motion tabled by MP Keith Vaz has attracted 82 signatures so far.
It “deplores the sacking of Edward Stourton as a presenter of the Today programme; calls upon the Chairman of the BBC Trust, who represents the licence fee payer, to investigate how his sacking came to be notified to him by a journalist from the Independent on Sunday; notes that Mr Stourton commands huge respect for the undoubted impartiality and intellectual rigour he brings to the Today programme; further notes that Jonathan Ross has been retained by the same BBC management team that has dispensed with Mr Stourton; and calls on the BBC to reinstate Mr Stourton as a presenter on the Today programme forthwith.”
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