Ballroom blitz
Strictly Come Dancing , Issue 1629

THE furore over professional dancers on Strictly mistreating their celebrity partners, with excessive use of the whip in the dressage ring (Is this right? Ed.), has followed the standard trajectory of a scandal involving the BBC, which can always be relied upon to escalate a drama into a long-running crisis.

It kicked off in January with vague and still-disputed details in the Sun about Amanda Abbington's treatment by Giovanni Pernice, and bubbled away for months as the corporation dithered, refusing to confirm any investigation but dropping Pernice from the 2024 line-up anyway.

Things escalated in mid-July when the BBC sacked another dancer, Graziano Di Prima, over behaviour that had apparently been flagged by the show's production team, and declared that when "issues are raised we will always take them seriously and act swiftly as appropriate" – a full seven months after the series in question concluded, and four weeks after announcing the re-recruitment of Di Prima for this year.

Davie's dance
Meanwhile, with the results of BBC's internal investigation into Strictly yet to be published (it is expected this week), the clock was ticking down to director-general Tim Davie's appearance at a press conference last Tuesday to launch the BBC's annual report, with Strictly highlighted proudly on its contents page, and it was increasingly obvious what the first question from hacks was going to be (not to mention the second and third).

The press reaction, however, was curiously muted.

That morning's front pages were at least dominated by feverish Beeb-bashing – the Telegraph straplined an ambitious "Is this the end for Strictly?", while the Sun was predicting five more glitterball redundancies.

But on Wednesday only the Mirror and Express splashed with Davie's apology for the scandal. The Mail relegated his comments on the scandal to page 21, showcasing its annual rant about BBC salaries across pages 6 and 7 instead.

Back in step
The story is unlikely to go away. But this time of year does mark a curious changing of the seasons: August is traditionally when the Strictly hype starts to pick up.

And lo, last Thursday's Sun did splash with an exclusive, that TV presenter Nick Knowles is set to appear in 2024's Strictly – while the Mail's "consultant editor showbusiness" Katie Hind delivered her opinion that she could not be "the only person to have got bored of this particular story" about Abbington, and that several other complaints from contestants were merely "sob stories from attention-seeking snowflakes".

More top stories in the latest issue:

KEIR & LOATHING
Several Guardian columnists were full of gloom about the next five years in the wake of Keir Starmer's election victory.

MEETING DISORDER
Fury at the Guardian after Novara Media infiltrated the paper's pre-election editorial conference and then named and shamed its keenest Starmerites.

ETERNAL LIFE PEER
Evgeny Lebedev delivered his third ever speech in the House of Lords last week – to sing the praises of "longevity science".

MONEY SINGS
A partner section on The Financial Times's website lavishes praise on all things Saudi – clearly not put off by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

COCK-UP CORNER
MailOnline continues to rack up breaches of the editor's code of practice, with regulator Ipso doling out unusually harsh condemnation.

DESERVES A WALLOP
Times writer Harry Wallop had a good moan about the spiralling cost of living – despite having written in the same pages about his luxury second home.