BBC director-general Tony Hall suggested yesterday that the Morning Star might on rare occasions be featured in TV and radio newspaper reviews.

But he conjured up a new excuse for not mentioning the people’s paper regularly, by pointing out that the Morning Star’s circulation figures are not audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Mr Hall failed to explain why the Morning Star used to appear — intermittently — on the BBC decades ago, even though its circulation was never ABC-audited.