The abolition of BBC Food: what a trifle

It is a sensible reform, no matter what Nigella, the Hairy Bikers or Mumsnet might think

An online petition to save the BBC recipe pages has attracted more than 90,000 supporters (Getty)

Sausage casserole. Fluffy American pancakes. Shortbread. All wholesome, toothsome dishes for which a number of recipes are available on the BBC website. Though not, it seems, for much longer, or at least not in easily accessible form.

As part of the review of the BBC’s priorities for its Charter renewal, the vast database of some 11,000 recipes will no longer be so easily accessed. Predictably, perhaps in a food-obsessed nation that has a special place in its heart, and tummy, for the BBC, an online petition to save the recipe pages has attracted more than 90,000 supporters.

A recipe for the worst of all worlds you might think; the recipes will still be there, but only available via a search engine - thus, defeating the whole point of this exercise, a sort of bureaucratic upside-down cake, if you will. An Eton mess, too (nine different recipes available), if we discern the hand of the Prime Minister behind these reforms.

Still, it is a sensible reform, no matter what Nigella, the Hairy Bikers or Mumsnet might think. It is past time that the BBC drove its tanks off the soft features lawn, and allowed local news media and commercially driven websites to have some fairer competition. In concentrating on hard, impartial news, the Head of News James Harding is getting the BBC’s focus right. He has stopped the BBC eating the rest of the media, and even made it regurgitate some of its previous meals.

Not nice, but the right thing to do.