Though I am a member of a club of which Carol Thatcher is president, I am afraid I can’t stick up for her over the ‘gollygate’ affair (even if I think that the BBC was over-the-top in its punishment).

Use of the word ‘golliwog’, in the context she employed it, can never be acceptable. This has been the position for at least 40 years, probably rather longer. Carol’s apologists talk of her having grown up in a period when golliwogs were to be found in every toy cupboard, when many of us sent away for golliwog badges that came from the makers of Robertson’s jam.

This is completely to overlook the fact that Robertson’s obstinately continued with its promotion for many years after all right-thinking people had decided that these embarrassing relics of the past had no place in a multi-racial Britain. I know; I was there.