Has the McCarthyite witch-hunt crossed the Atlantic and found a new home on The One Show? Toby Young, the author, believes so after the comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli was suspended from the BBC One programme for six months after a complaint from a female colleague.

Carol Thatcher, of course, was a previous victim, cast out from the show after an injudicious, off-air remark about a tennis player. “I wonder what appalling act of sexism Kohli committed to upset his co-worker?,” Young asks in The Spectator. “Asked for her phone number, perhaps? Invited her out to dinner? ‘I recognise I overstepped the mark and have apologised unreservedly’, he (Kohli) has said.

“The whole episode is eerily reminiscent of the public shaming of a Chinese intellectual during the Cultural Revolution. He has been forced to abase himself at the altar of political correctness, acknowledging that he has committed a terrible thought crime, in order to have any hope of working in television again.”

The BBC, which will not reveal the details of the offence, says that Kohli will return — after taking an enforced rest to “reflect on his behaviour”.

Congratulations to Alastair Bruce, the 5th Baron Aberdare, who will fill the vacancy for an elected crossbench hereditary peer after winning a rare Lords by-election. Lord Aberdare is the English translator of Hector Berlioz: The Musical Madhouse and a crosswords buff. Aberdare headed the list of 33 names on the ballot page, which may have helped.

If the BBC has taken the moral high ground, what of the Ukraine? Censors have banned Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno on the ground that its “unjustified” showing of genitals and homosexual sex could have a damaging effect on Ukrainians’ moral health. The country’s revolution was orange, rather than pink.

Lady Antonia Fraser is looking forward to the Lord’s tribute cricket match for Harold Pinter. “By a piece of good luck, my father, the late Lord Longford was a mad cricket fan, so I was one of those women of my generation who grew up knowing the rules. I was a promising batsman, that’s what Harold used to say.”

Whitney is back and all is harmony

The Face Whitney Houston

Every octave-fluttering X Factor starlet is channelling Whitney. Now the diva herself is back, unveiling a new album at a London soirée, in an attempt to show that her battles with drug and alcohol issues are finally over.

With 140 million album sales, Houston was one of the most successful female artists of the 20th century. From crisp soul to the show-stopping I Will Always Love You, a fixture at weddings and funerals, she could do no wrong. But somewhere between a hit film role in The Bodyguard and the souring of her marriage to singer Bobby Brown, the clean-cut Whitney was replaced by, frankly, a “partied-out” mess. After a spell in rehab, Houston, 45, looks back on her game, charging a reported £1 million for private gigs and now has Sir Philip Green in her corner. “She tumbled but she didn’t crumble,” says Clive Davis, the mogul who has guided her for 25 years.

Postscript

Ne-Yo, the blingtastic US R&B star who writes hits for Rihanna and Beyoncé, summons us to a St James’s members’ club to discuss business plans. We cannot refuse. “I’m looking to sign the hottest British singers, rappers and groups to my Compound Entertainment company,” he says. The singer would have shared the O2 arena stage with Michael Jackson this week. “I had written songs for his comeback. But he’s been taken and I’m here. Maybe it’s all for a reason.”

ITV will have to try a little harder to poach Alan Carr. We gather that the outrageous comic has signed on for a new series of his Channel 4 show, Chatty Man.

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