The BBC's apology to the Queen

BBC’s The World Tonight -- my contribution starts about seven and a half minutes into the program.

Why was British law helpless to prevent the hate-filled rantings of the extremist preacher Abu Hamza? That's the perfectly reasonable question that the Queen put to her Home Secretary a few years ago, according to BBC Terrorism and Security correspondent, Frank Gardner - who promptly apologised to Buckingham Palace for revealing this fascinating titbit from a conversation he had had with Her Majesty.

But what was so terrible about the revelation? And why did both Frank and the BBC apologise?

I spoke to Ritula Shah on the BBC’s The World Tonight program about the protocol of repeating the contents of a private conversation with the monarch.