No stranger to undiplomatic incidents

While Nicholas Witchell was appointed the BBC's royal and diplomatic correspondent in 1998, diplomacy has not always been his calling card - at least as far as the royal family is concerned.

His warts-and-all obituary of Princess Margaret on her death in 2002 was, say royal watchers, not best received at Buckingham Palace.

In a pre-recorded tribute to her life, broadcast as soon as the news broke, Witchell, now 51, guided viewers through the minutiae of her life and loves. As one commentator wrote, he also "forensically described Margaret's 'copious' consumption of whisky".

Some suggest Witchell's standing among the royal family is little higher than that of his former rival Jennie Bond - notoriously unpopular with them.

His most famous on-screen gaffe came in 2002 when reporting on news that Prince Harry had been caught smoking cannabis. Fronting a live report outside St James's Palace for BBC Breakfast News, he claimed Harry had taken the Class A drug cocaine and had to backtrack rapidly on his comments.

During coverage of the Queen Mother's funeral, he slipped up, saying: "People are here, chatting and laughing - it's clearly a solemn occasion."

He did, however, redeem himself by wearing a black tie for the broadcast, while colleagues, including Peter Sissons, did not.