So John Humphrys has had his knuckles rapped by the BBC. In the mildest possible rebuke, the Director-General has said that his remarks were “inappropriate”.

Mark Thompson was, of course, referring to a speech by the Today presenter — part of his extracurricular activity. When it comes to his performance as a broadcaster, Thompson lauds Humphrys as “one of our finest news presenters”.

If that is the case, the BBC is in dire straits, because no word is more appropriate to describe Humphrys’ behaviour on air than “inappropriate”.

Argumentative, hectoring and sneering as Humphrys may be, his tone is a matter of taste. What is a matter of public concern, however, is his apparent inability to conduct an interview without inserting his own prejudices.

From the many examples, the most egregious is an “interview” — in reality a diatribe — he conducted with The New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. An eminent foreign policy specialist, Mr Friedman is a critic of many aspects of President Bush’s policies. But even he was shocked at the force of Humphrys’ contempt for the President. After one rant, Mr Friedman interjected rather meekly: “The American people elected George Bush” — at which the Today presenter snapped: “Just — or possibly not, as the case may be.” Then this: “What, Thomas Friedman, could cause the Americans to pull back from this?” “From what? Iraq?” “No, this position that ‘we are the masters and we can do whatever we want’ ” — stated as if fact.

Were Humphrys employed by any other media outlet he would have every right to behave like this. If we objected to his modus operandi, we could simply turn him off. But as licence payers, we are forced to pay £126.50 a year to fund it. There is no BBC “off” switch.

In his now infamous speech, Humphrys argued that: “If we were not prepared to take on a very, very powerful government indeed there would be no point in the BBC existing — that is ultimately what the BBC is for.”

No, Mr Humphrys, it is not. The purpose of public service broadcasting is precisely the opposite: to provide an analytical, unbiased and serious alternative to the supposed free-for-all of commercial broadcasting.

That it is now ITV and Sky to whom one turns for unbiased coverage is thanks to John Humphrys and his BBC ilk.