The Home Office minister Jess Phillips offered the advice after the MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace ssued an apology for comments described by No10 yesterday as ‘misogynistic’
Jess Phillips reacts to Gregg Wallace apology
Jess Phillips has suggested under-fire MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace should reflect – and say nothing for a “short while”.
The Home Office minister offered the advice after Mr Wallace issued an apology for comments described by No10 yesterday as “misogynistic”.
The presenter, 60, took to social media on Sunday to challenge accusations of inappropriate sexual remarks and jokes by 13 people over a 17 year period.
He provoked a massive backlash – including from the Prime Minister’s official spokesman – claiming they came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.
Speaking today, Ms Phillips, the Home Office minister for safeguarding, told Sky News: “I think that Greg Wallace should maybe take a moment to reflect and think about what he says before he says it.
“My mother used to advise me that I’d missed the perfect opportunity to say nothing and I think maybe he should take that advice for a short while.”
She added: “It’s very easy to come out and say sorry after you’ve had a bad reaction to something but these are serious allegations, they are being investigated. I should imagine he’d be better off if he’d just taken part in that investigation.”
The MasterChef presenter has stepped away from the BBC cooking show while the misconduct complaints are externally reviewed by producer Banijay UK.
There have been calls for the BBC to pull the show off-air during the investigation. Baroness Harriet Harman told LBC on Monday evening she did not think the broadcaster should be airing BBC MasterChef: The Professionals.
She said: “I don’t think the BBC should be airing these programmes, and he [Gregg Wallace] hasn’t actually apologised.
“He’s done this kind of phoney apology, where he says, ‘I’m sorry if anybody’s offended.’ Actually, he should take it on board and acknowledge that he has been offensive, he has been downright rude, and it is not the job of presenters to trash a whole load of viewers who hitherto have enjoyed watching the programme.”
Ms Phillips said it was not for her to say whether the show should air. But she told BBC Breakfast: “Gregg Wallace isn’t the only person on MasterChef, if it was just the Gregg Wallace show, then I could understand that you would immediately go, yeah, just take it off the air.
“But it is a launchpad for quite a lot of young chefs. It’s not for me to decide what the BBC chooses to air or not.”