Media
Diane Abbott was a second choice to present This Week but later left Ann Widdecombe out of a job, its editor has revealed.
BBC editor of live political programmes Jamie Donald said the line-up for the first series, which began five years ago next week, was due to be Michael Portillo and Oonagh King.
King pulled out at the last minute and had to be replaced by stand-in Diane Abbott, another MP.
Donald said he had planned to scrap former cabinet member Portillo, and Abbott, after the first run, and bring in Widdecombe.
"We’d already signed Ann Widdecombe for the summer – but Michael and Diane proved so irresistible after the first run we didn’t use Ann as promised," he wrote on the BBC editors' blog.
"To this day this great media stalwart won’t appear on any of my programmes."
BBC editor of live political programmes Jamie Donald said the line-up for the first series, which began five years ago next week, was due to be Michael Portillo and Oonagh King.
King pulled out at the last minute and had to be replaced by stand-in Diane Abbott, another MP.
Donald said he had planned to scrap former cabinet member Portillo, and Abbott, after the first run, and bring in Widdecombe.
"We’d already signed Ann Widdecombe for the summer – but Michael and Diane proved so irresistible after the first run we didn’t use Ann as promised," he wrote on the BBC editors' blog.
"To this day this great media stalwart won’t appear on any of my programmes."
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