Andy Kershaw hits back at BBC ban in Indy

Broadcaster Andy Kershaw hits out today at the BBC's decision to pull the On the Ropes programme, in which he was interviewed by John Humphrys, in a first person piece in The Independent.
The Radio 4 programme was pulled at the last minute, after being heavily promoted, on the grounds that it might invade the privacy of Kershaw's ex-partner and children.
But Kershaw says today: "There was no anger in what I said on the programme, no bitterness, nor any self-pity. There was nothing to which my ex-partner and the mother of my two children could reasonably object. The programme ended by me listing for Humphrys all the things about which I feel positive, red-energised and optimistic."
Kershaw adds: "As we left the studio, Humphrys slapped me across the shoulder and said: "I think you got the tone of that absolutely right." The producer, Karen Gregor, was gushing that I'd been "absolutely brilliant" and that it was "the best On The Ropes we have ever recorded."
"I later learned that the programme was cleared by BBC lawyers that same Thursday for broadcast the following Tuesday. It was then trailed so heavily over the weekend that I found it embarrassing to listen to Radio 4."
He also says: "I have never brought the BBC into disrepute, never failed to turn up for a live broadcast or recording, never tormented Andrew Sachs, nor been caught taking cocaine and providing prostitutes to dicey businessmen. I have won nine Sony Gold Awards, more even than John Peel. And, in my occasional role of foreign correspondent, I have cheerily put my life on the line reporting from African civil wars for BBC radio news programmes. There was nothing said in the recording to give anyone those concerns. I spoke of my children only with affection."
Kerhaw says he has asked Mark Damazer, controller of BBC Radio 4, for a detailed written explanation of why the programme was axed.
He claims its cancellation has sent out "a very damaging signal, encouraging a widespread assumption that it must have been pulled because I had gone into the studio and made a programme so full of slanders and anger that it was unfit for broadcast."