‘The people have spoken ... the bastards,” a waspish Dick Tuck observed following his failure to make the California State Senate in 1966. At the end of a year in which electorates throughout the UK and beyond have proved time and again they simply cannot be trusted to make even the simplest choice, it is a sentiment with which BBC panjandrums were happy not to concur at the end of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year beano in Birmingham on Sunday night.
They had been utterly terrified the Great British Public would select a one‑two-three of Andy Murray, Mo Farah and Gareth Bale – three sporting high-achievers who it was known would not be present in person on the night.
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