BBC Jeremy Hunt gaffe was a spoonerism just waiting to happen

At 07.59 precisely this morning on Radio 4 we got what must be the broadcasting moment of the year, if not the decade.

Trailing an upcoming interview about broadband, Jim Naughtie on the Today programme promised an interview with the Hultural Secretary Jeremy C***.

I suppose this was a spoonerism waiting to happen. Someone texted the BBC blaming David Cameron for making the appointment in the first place.

By naming Jeremy Hunt as Cultural Secretary, he was asking for trouble as any professional broadcaster or stand-up comedian would know.

But having made the faux pas, Jim Naughtie then made things worse by apologising for it — serially — throughout the rest of the programme. As Denis Healey says: "If you are in a hole, stop digging."

Whether it was the taste czars at the BBC trying to emulate the Kremlin or Vatican at their most sanctimonious, poor old Jim had to apologise again and again. He implied it was a terrible slip, which some said had offended.

Come off it: this wasn't a terrible mistake, it was only an all-too-human slip. Looking back on a very chequered 43 years of broadcasting, similar cases litter my memory — we have all been there.

The most frequent slip was "the British Broadcorping Castration" — which once happened with a presenter on my watch.

What should be done? Poor Jeremy Hunt might think of changing his job title to anything that doesn't begin with a "c".