THE BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) have been shown to be wholly out of touch in their decision in telling us Naga Munchetty crossed the line when she condemned comments made by Donald Trump.

Breakfast presenter Naga spoke out earlier this year at comments made by Mr Trump when he told female Democrat politicians to “go back” to their own countries.

She told her co-presenter Dan Walker: “Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism,” adding: “I’m not accusing anyone of anything here, but you know what certain phrases mean.”

Questioned by Mr Walker, she said she was “absolutely furious a man in that position thinks it’s OK to skirt the lines by using language like that”.

More than 40 actors and broadcasters have called on the BBC to overturn its decision. And I can see why.

This episode has shown that it is simply not good enough to make a decision based on outdated perspectives. Here, we have a situation where it is obvious that a statement was racist yet somehow the person who has brought that up is being reprimanded for calling this out. It is ridiculous.

This sends the wrong message out.

It means you are welcome to talk about issues but just don’t say anything that may annoy those who hold ‘racist’ views. That is what it really boils to doesn’t it? Say what you want but just don’t do anything that will rile the bigots up.

Or don’t say anything that will attract the wrong sort of attention. It is even worse than using that other firm favourite, that you have a ‘chip on your shoulder’.

We have people who would rather others would not mention the ‘R’ word as it may well cause them a great deal of embarrassment or goes against their own perspective of what is deemed racist or not.

I’m sorry it is not the responsibility of a couple of people in suits to tell us what cannot be deemed racist. The BBC like many other organisations have made an effort to increase diversity but like many others it seems this is just ‘window dressing’ to fulfill equality targets. Here, they failed the test.

In this case it was clear, Naga was correct and fully in her right in stating her opinion and it should have been left at that.