It was an attempt to defuse a deeply damaging situation. But Gregg Wallace’s claim that complaints of inappropriate behaviour made against him were simply from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age” pushed the allegations even further into the spotlight.
At first the phrase provoked fury – the former victims’ commissioner Vera Baird KC accused the BBC of being “in the dark ages” for tolerating Wallace. And then it was ridiculed – “It’s not often that the internet gets behind middle-class, middle-aged women these days, but thanks to Gregg Wallace for making it happen,” wrote comedian David Baddiel.
