Retired teacher Dorian Wood has complained to the Commission for Racial Equality that the BBC was guilty of racial discrimination because it advertised for a presenter (although Blue Peter wasn’t mentioned in the advertising) only in Scottish and Northern Ireland newspapers.

“They specifically set out to recruit from Ulster and Scotland to find people of a Celtic origin, and in my view, that amounts ot racial discrimination.

“Somebody clearly said they wanted someone with an Irish or Scottish accent. What about the other people with regional and rural accents?

“I am irritated by the hypocrisy of the BBC because they overtly state their equal opportunities credentials, yet they clearly have a covert ethnic and cultural agenda for the programme.”

The BBC said it advertised in the nationally-distributed magazine ‘The Stage’. A spokesman for the BBC rejected claims of racial discrimination and said the recruitment search was the “widest ever undertaken by Children’s BBC”.

Here’s how you reacted to the previous Salmon controversy.

As the report notes -

Mairtin O Muilleoir, who launched his paper with a Stg£3m (€4.4m) budget last month, has begun a legal action against a Sunday newspaper for linking Daily Ireland to the Provos.

Yesterday Mr O Muilleoir said: “We’re not a Sinn Fein paper or a mouthpiece for any political party.”

In which case the letter makes for interesting reading -

A letter written on Dail notepaper and personally signed “Caoimhghin O Caolain, Sinn Fein Dail Leader” begins: “I write to draw your attention to an attractive investment opportunity, which offers not only a guaranteed return but the special satisfaction of being involved in the launch and development of an Irish Daily newspaper that will be unashamedly on the side of Irish unity and Independence.”

The “guaranteed return” is picked up on later in the report.

But the letter also names Phil Flynn as a Director.. something that Daily Ireland denied after Flynn resigned from various boards following the disclosure of his connection to Chesterton Finance.

The letter also describes former chairman of the Bank of Scotland (Ireland), Phil Flynn, who is a former vice-President of Sinn Fein, as a director of the newspaper. But the publisher of ‘Daily Ireland’ says this was “a mistake”.

Deputy O Caolain’s letter said: “A guaranteed return after seven years is part of the attractive package.” Mairtin O Muilleoir said the guarantee was inaccurate.

A Caoimhghin O Caolain spokesman said the information in the letter was given to him by ‘Daily Ireland’.[emphasis added]

He’s not happy at the prospect:

The occupied 6 counties is not a democracy and the PSNI/RUC are not a police service of the people rather they are a force totally integrated into the British intelligence services supported by the British army. It will take more than a few token garda to swap places with former RUC murderers to convince the nationalist people that the PSNI is about policing in isolation from British interference in Irish affairs.

The leaders of the 1916 Rising were branded as criminals. The political prisoners in the 1970s and 1980s were branded as criminals, and ten men died to show that republicans are not criminal. We will not allow our struggle to be criminalised by enemies who fear Sinn Féin and our increased vote. That is another reason why people need to maximise our vote in May.

She went on to insist that all the blame for the breakdown of negotiations last December related to the DUP’s insistence on photographs of IRA decommissioning.