BBC Olympics presenter Alex Scott shows regional pronunciation is nothing to be ashamed of after Lord Digby Jones tweet - Anthony Clavane

Like the news anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, Lord Digby Jones wants us all to get mad. In fact, he’s as mad as hell, and he’s not going to take this any more.

Why is His Lordship so mad? What’s he at the end of his tether about? The pandemic? The Government? The stress of modern life?

Nope. He’s mad about a bright, affable and eloquent sports presenter’s inability to pronounce the “g” at the end of certain words.

Echoing the immortal refrain yelled by Peter Finch’s veteran hack in the 1976 classic, the former CBI boss tweeted: “Enough! I can’t stand it anymore!”

He explained that the ex-Arsenal and England footballer Alex Scott was ruining the Olympic Games for him. He suggested the BBC TV host needed “elocution lessons” because she didn’t, well, talk proper.

“Competitors are not taking part,” he condescendingly pointed out, “in the fencin, rowin, boxin, kayakin, weightliftin & swimmin.”

Well, I’m pretty mad. Indeed I’m fumin – at the snobbery that appears to be endemic in modern Britain. Lord Jones’ rant might have amused those who enjoy the spectacle of upper-crust, black-and-white, bowler-hatted, Mr Cholmondley Warner-types periodically making fools of themselves.

But that Harry Enfield joke isn’t funny any more.

As sociolinguistics expert Rob Drummond puts it: “Dropping g’s is a really common feature of lots of accents… it’s just a different accent or language feature.”

The people who get worked up about “uncouth” working-class East London accents, the rise of the glottal stop and the supposedly poor diction of the lower orders are the same patronising elitists who deride Yorkshire-born radio presenters – step forward, the brilliant Chris Mason – for their alleged speech impediments.

They are the same people who bang on about needing subtitles to understand the regional accents in Love Island.

I’m not sure how many Yorkshire Post readers have been keeping up with the coupling exploits of the young stars on ITV’s dating show, but apparently a large number of southern viewers are in need of a translator to follow Brad McClelland’s strong Northumberland brogue; the poor loves were so confused earlier in the series when the 26-year-old hunk described himself as a “labourer” – assuming instead that he had said he was a “Libra”.

And they are not a million miles away from the American purists who are complaining that “cheeky Britishisms” frequently creep into their children’s vocabulary. According to the Wall Street Journal, this decline in linguistic standards is blamed on the ‘Peppa Pig Effect’; US youngsters have begun speaking with “an unusual vocabulary and a British accent” after binge-watching the popular cartoon show during lockdown.

The telly should be a showcase for diversity. It should be democratic. It should represent the whole of a nation, not just a narrow, privileged section of it. (By the way – like “biscuits”, “petrol stations” and “mummy”– it just so happens that “telly” is one of the Anglicisms frowned upon by the American purists.)

Do we really want a return to the days when no one was allowed on the BBC who strayed too far away from Received Pronunciation? When speaking the Queen’s English was the only pathway to social mobility? When only Mr Cholmondley Warner-types read the news?

What really got me into a Beale-like state of anger this week was a report predicting the demise of regional, particularly northern, accents.

Academic researchers from the universities of Portsmouth and Cambridge believe that, for a number of reasons, everyone in England may well end up speaking in the same way by 2066.

“It’s exciting,” declared Dr Tamsin Blaxter, a Cambridge University linguist, that such predictions are being made about the future.

Exciting? Horrifying, more like.

The last word should go to Scott, who tweeted that she was “proud of the young girl who overcame obstacles, and proud of my accent. It’s me, it’s my journey, my grit.”

She added: “Never allow judgments on your class, accent, or appearance to hold you back.”

Speaking with a regional accent is nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed it is, in my opinion, a Good Thing. It reflects a society that is vibrant, meritocratic and inclusive.

It is something to celebrate not ridicule.