Radio review

The death of Rabbi Hugo Grynn might well give The Moral Maze pause - and it did for a moment at the start of yesterday's edition, when Michael Buerk delivered a short tribute, before releasing the ferrets on to the question of the hour. But the Rabbi's going creates a loss which the programme will find difficult to make up. It was a matter of tone, perhaps, more than content. He was, for one thing, the only person on the Maze who ever sounded puzzled. He provided a steadying ground around which those other strident voices could play.

The convention by which he was given the concluding word on every topic was a great face-saver. Whatever onslaught of sanctimony preceded it, there was the final homily or parable to knit up the discussion's frayed edges and egos - sometimes not particularly relevant to the matter in hand, sometimes preposterously folksy, but always benign and embracing.

This week's "fundamental issue" was one pretty well chewed over by now: press intrusion of privacy, limits to. No new dilemmas were exposed. It's almost wonderful the way they can keep their zeal up. But they do require the various witnesses under inquisition to give some semblance of playing the moral game - and they almost met their match in yesterday's first guest, Brian Harris, chief photographer with this newspaper. Confronted with some tricky ethical choices his gambit was casual indifference.

He was asked about snapping the Royals. He replied that anything you couldn't be sued for was fair game. Michael Buerk was ready with the magic word. "But morally?" Harris: "Morally? Oh come on. They're a shower. The whole lot of them. The Royal Family are an absolute shower." What, even the Queen Mum? Would Harris be happy to take a photo of her falling over in public? As Dr Starkey put it: "What has she ever done? All that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother has ever done in public is smile and be co- operative." Harris: "Inanely."

A hard man, but that's the way to do it.