It was only a handful of “middle-class women of a certain age”. That’s how the MasterChef host Gregg Wallace originally dismissed his accusers, when allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour first surfaced. Just a few humourless posh birds, in other words, who couldn’t take a joke from the self-styled “cheeky greengrocer” and star of a cookery show enjoyed by – well, lots of other middle-class women of a certain age, for starters.

But those jokes were apparently sexualised enough that the former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, no shrinking violet, raised concerns privately with producers after appearing as a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef. Meanwhile, her fellow broadcaster Kirstie Allsopp, who recalled Wallace allegedly describing a sex act with his partner within an hour of meeting her at work, succinctly described all the reasons women mostly didn’t say anything at the time: “Because you feel, in no particular order, embarrassed, a prude, shocked, waiting for a male colleague to call him out, not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, thinking it’s better to plough on with the day, assuming you misheard/misunderstood or just don’t get the joke.”

Or, of course, because you’re frightened that if you complain you won’t get hired again – which is precisely why it’s often those pesky older women, financially secure and senior enough not to be easily brushed off, who end up making a fuss on behalf of those who can’t.

We now know that more than 50 people, in addition to the 13 who originally complained to BBC News, have come forward after an inquiry into Wallace’s conduct set up by Banijay, the production company behind........

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