WHILE the precise distance from the offices of the BBC’s top brass to The Andrew Marr Show studio is not a matter of public record, it was clearly a trek too far for someone.

It has been a dreadful couple of days for the BBC, and the Sunday papers were still full of the fallout from the Dyson report into how Martin Bashir deceived Princess Diana into granting him the now infamous 1995 interview.

Huge story. Much at stake. Here was a chance for management to have their say on the corporation’s flagship current affairs show. Astonishingly, it was not to be.

“You might have assumed we would have voice from the BBC itself to respond to all the unanswered questions,” said Marr. “You might have expected that. So did we. But as it turns out, no dice.”

The BBC had, it is true, wheeled out its director-general, Tim Davie, to respond to the report when it was published last Friday. But there have been developments since, including mutterings from the UK Government on reforms to the BBC to ensure such wrong-doing and cover-up cannot happen again.

Not putting anyone up for interview was a missed opportunity to send a message to the public that the BBC was committed to sorting things out. One imagines, moreover, that the corporation’s beleaguered staff might have appreciated senior management speaking up for them.

For all of these reasons, was it too much to ask that Mr Davie, who earns £450,000 a year, show his face?

Marr’s main guest, Home Secretary Priti Patel, was able to point to the absence of any BBC spokesperson as symptomatic of an institution that had to get its house in order. The BBC’s reputation had been “highly damaged”, she said, adding: “Lessons will have to be learned – there is no question about that.”

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The show turned instead to BBC stalwart Dame Esther Rantzen for a discussion on Bashir. She thought it was unfair that Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, had drawn a line between the 1995 interview and his sister’s death two years later.

As Rantzen pointed out, there had already been Andrew Morton’s bombshell biography of the Princess (with which Diana cooperated fully), and an equally sensational television interview with Prince Charles before Diana sat down with Bashir.

One of the more shaming aspects of the Bashir scandal was the way BBC staff who blew the whistle early on were frozen out.

Rantzen suggested that the corporation should appoint a guardian for whistleblowers, someone above management who could take up complaints independently.

Over on Sky News, Trevor Phillips was standing in for Sophy Ridge who is on maternity leave. “Do you personally trust the BBC?” he asked Priti Patel. The Home Secretary said the BBC’s reputation had been “compromised”, adding: “They will have to reflect upon the report and spend a great deal of time really looking at how they can regain and rebuild trust and confidence.”

The Home Secretary was in the main touring the Sunday shows to publicise proposed reforms to the immigration process. These would include making it easier to remove people who had overstayed on their visas, she said.

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That prompted Phillips to bring up the recent protest in Kenmure Street, Glasgow, when Immigration Enforcement officials were prevented from deporting two Indian men, Lakhvir Singh and Sumit Sehdev, by a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators. After an eight hour stand off and the intervention of police, the two men were released from the van. The Home Office has since said they will be deported.

At the time of the protest, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon condemned the actions of the Immigration Enforcement officials. She tweeted: “Doing this on Eid, in the heart of our Muslim community, and in the midst of a serious Covid outbreak was staggeringly irresponsible – but the even deeper problem is an appalling asylum & immigration policy.”

Was Ms Patel going to confront the FM on this, Phillips wondered? What do you think?

The Home Secretary, whose reputation for not backing down from a scrap has made her a favourite among a section of Tory backbenchers, not to mention her boss, Boris Johnson, came out fighting.

“Immigration is a reserved matter for the Government here [in London],” she began. “Quite frankly it is pretty clear that when it comes to the nationalists in Scotland they would much rather have an immigration policy of open borders, no checks when it comes to criminals coming to the UK, and no border controls.

“This had nothing to do with Eid at all. Immigration Enforcement were absolutely doing their job … It’s a sorry state of affairs that we see the nationalists in Scotland basically trying to thwart the safety and security of the British public … This is exactly the reason why we are changing our laws and bringing in new legislation so the government can remove people that should not be in our country.”

Over on Twitter, Ms Sturgeon made no initial response. She did, however, send her congratulations to Scottish boxer Josh Taylor on becoming the undisputed world champion. While his fight with Jose Ramirez is over, one gets the feeling the battle between the First Minister and the Home Secretary has only just begun.