The BBC's children's channels are its crown jewels - getting rid of them will leave it a hollow shell

For me, it was a “marmalade dropper” – that great phrase, invented by Bill Deedes, which describes a newspaper story so shocking it makes you drop your jar of preserve onto the kitchen table in horror. I had this moment when Katie Morag, the fictional girl from the Outer Hebrides, was pictured next to a story about the BBC planning to axe CBeebies and CBBC, the two channels that play host to Morag and her pals. You could almost hear the smacking of glass upon wood in family homes across the country. Not CBeebies! Not CBBC! Not our wee Katie!