Did he fall or was he pushed? Well, the BBC is saying it couldn't use him because he signed a commercial contract to promote Westland products, which goes against its rules.

Others are saying such was the unprecedented torrent of complaints from viewers and from listeners to Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time about the "dumbeddown, celebrity and malarkey-filled coverage" last year that the BBC bosses ordered a "shift of emphasis", away from the increasing trivialisation of hallowed horticulture. Existing presenters were ordered to get serious and plantspeople such as Carol Klein and Pippa Greenwood were given lots more to do.

One complainant who wrote to the Daily Telegraph after last year's BBC coverage of the show did not mince his words. "I want an overview, then a detailed breakdown of all the displays, " he wrote. "Instead, I get Alan Titchmarsh and some lad on a bench trying to be funny. If the pair so much as venture into the marquee, they plonk themselves in front of the displays and start yapping."