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If Greg Dyke, the former Director-General of the BBC, thought the organisation he once led "hideously white", I wonder what he'd make of ITV's Midsomer Murders.
Yesterday, there was uproar when Brian True-May, the show's co-creator and executive producer, told Radio Times that the drama, which regularly attracts six million viewers and is just starting its 14th series, has thrived because its all-white cast shows the true English village - a genteel, if somewhat homicide-prone, contrast to the multiculturalism that prevails in Britain's cities.
It is, he said, the "last bastion of Englishness". An ITV spokesman declared himself "shocked and appalled" by the comments made by Mr True-May, who was promptly suspended by the production company, All3Media.
Perhaps the spokesman would have been a little less appalled if he'd actually visited some of the places where one of his channel's most successful series is shot. The fictional villages, with such marvellous names as Midsomer Magna, Ferne Basset and Luxton Deeping, are brought to life in a smattering of picturesque locations in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
One such backdrop is Haddenham, a large village five miles south-west of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. It has been used in nine episodes of Midsomer Murders, including Judgement Day and Things That Go Bump in the Night.
There wasn't much going bump at all on the day the Telegraph visited. A taciturn white-haired lady sits waiting for the 280 bus to Oxford, on a bench donated by the Rotary Club of Thame Witchet. A rather funky touch-screen timetable, powered by a solar panel, asks its users to be patient as it "has been in deep sleep mode".
So, it would seem, is much of the rest of the village. The High Street - no chains here, only thatched houses selling at well over £600,000 - which leads to a beautiful church and duck pond, has a village museum that is open for two hours a week. A sign in the window announces that the Haddenham Museum Trust is hosting an evening on Friday looking at the village's past. The event promises, with a thrilling use of quotation marks, to use "modern technology". The other end of the village, however, clustered around a pretty green, reveals more signs of life - and no shortage of opinions on Midsomer Murders.
"I love the mystery element of who's done what," says Pamela Rutland, wiping down the shelves in The Cottage Bakery, "although it does go on a bit and I'm not sure about the new guy" [John Nettles, who played the central character, DCI Tom Barnaby, recently stood down from the show after 13 years].
And is the show reflective of modern village life? "Well, there are fewer murders here," she laughs. "And it does seem a little bit nostalgic, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that." She lowers her voice, carefully, not that there is anyone around who might mind. "Anyway, you don't get many foreigners in the countryside, do you?"
Saying "foreigners" in such a way - although the line is delivered kindly - would no doubt cause a coronary in most ITV spokesmen. But it is clear what she means. Haddenham is overwhelmingly white. "It's mainly down to price," says Jay Harwood, who works at the Christopher Pallet estate agency opposite. "You can get a lot more for your money in somewhere like Aylesbury."
Up the road at The Rising Sun pub, Roland Brason, 63, a retired film editor, displays the robust approach to multiculturalism typical of his generation. "I don't care if God is pink or blue," he declares. "I have black friends and call them things like 'you black bugger'. They don't mind. And there is a Sri Lanka newsagent in my village who is absolutely lovely."
Mr Brason's house, in nearby Long Crendon, was used as a backdrop for one of the episodes. "I sympathise with the bloke who got the boot," he says. "It's a polished show and fairly reflective of a typical English village."
Fairly reflective, perhaps. But not entirely. Although Haddenham's "Little Italy" coffee shop does not have an Italian in sight, and the "Peking Rendezvous" (Chinese-French fusion, perhaps?) remains resolutely shut, there is a House of Spice restaurant, offering "premier Indian dining".
Inside Humayun Rashid Tareq, 22, a waiter who came here from Bangladesh only a year ago, is initially confused when asked for his opinion on a television show he has never seen. "There has been a murder?" he asks. "Here? Are you the police?" Once put right, he is effusive about the English countryside. "I prefer it to London," he says. "It is less noisy, and the people are very nice and have time to talk to you."
If there is any criticism of Midsomer Murders in the areas where it is filmed - and the overwhelming opinion is that the co-creator's suspension is a lot of fuss about nothing - it has little to do with the politically-correct hand-wringing of ITV headquarters.
"All sorts of things happen down here which would make a much more interesting drama," says a man outside Little Italy, who does not want to give his name. "I'm talking car keys and pots, that sort of thing." He breaks off. "Not that I've ever been invited."
"The only point I'd make is that it doesn't portray the sort of people who live in a council house and get up at dawn to do a shift in the Nestle factory in Aylesbury," says Mr Brason.
Mr Harwood agrees that the television drama is a "fairly extremist reflection" of rural life. "A bigger issue," he says, "is that village life has been watered down and dispersed with more commuters who don't contribute to the village economy. It's becoming more like London with residents not knowing their neighbours. And now people here are worried about the threat of the high-speed railway connecting Birmingham and London."
"Anyway," he adds, "I wonder if all this nostalgia is a good thing. Personally I think that permanently harking back to the past is holding us back a bit."
A fair point, of course - but try telling that to the producers of The King's Speech or the churner-outers of merchandise for the royal wedding, who know just how well this particular brand of Englishness sells abroad. Indeed, in 2004, Midsomer Murders was one of the most sold British television shows worldwide, screened everywhere from Slovakia to Saudi Arabia.
All of which surely make it an export - white, certainly, but far from hideous - to be celebrated. Perhaps the Duke of York could take a couple of DVDs with him on his next overseas trip.
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