A story to make your blood boil features in today's Sunday Telegraph: Ofcom has put a stop to the forthcoming Channel Five programme Crimestoppers Live, a Crimewatch-style show seeking to solve crimes through reconstructions and public appeals for information.
And Ofcom's reason for making them cancel the show? It was to be part-funded by a donation from Lord Ashcroft, who - many people may not be aware, as it is not in his nature to brag about it - was the founder of Crimestoppers UK, which has helped solve literally tens of thousands of crimes through its phone line and website over the last two decades.
Lord Ashcroft is irate - and so he should be.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the reason given by Ofcom for its intervention is that the programme would have fallen foul of rules stopping "companies or individuals from 'plugging' their own products on TV programmes - but which also seem to apply to charities."
So what if a programme trying to solve crime promotes a charity whose stated aim is to solve and reduce crime? It is surely to be applauded.
When I was still working for the Telegraph, I exposed how the Government had spent £800,000 of taxpayers' money sponsoring two series of a programme promoting Police Community Support Officers - for which ITV was later censured for failing to make clear that it was funded by the Home Office.
But in this new case I fail to see a single reason that would make any right-thinking person object to the airing of Crimestoppers Live, regardless of how it is funded.
If the rules need to be changed to allow it to be aired, then whichever authority is responsible for writing the rules needs to change them - and fast.
