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Good evening. Perhaps he should have stuck to cookbooks, though he isn't safe there.

Jamie Oliver is in water hotter than his pasta pan for his latest book,

a children's novel with the subplot that features an Indigenous Australian girl with mystical powers.

She's a sympathetic character,

but the activist National Aboriginal Educational Corporation

has accused the celebrity chef of the erasure,

trivialisation and stereotyping of First Nation people.

Jamie has fallen on his kitchen knife

saying that he's devastated and wholly apologises.

His publisher likewise, the book's been withdrawn.

Now, nobody thinks he intended to offend.

Indeed, after being basted for calling one of his recipes an empire dish,

he generally goes to what some would see as extravagant lengths to avoid fashionable grievances.

But like many other instances of those deemed privileged who transgress current sensitivities,

the moral weight of the offence lies entirely with its supposed impact on those regarded as marginalised.

In a court of law, motivation or the lack of it is a key element in judging

the seriousness of a crime. In what sometimes called the culture wars, all that matters is what

affect the offences supposed to have on those who've taken it. So, Jamie down under in more ways than

one, but more, does a wrongdoer's intention matter morally?

That's our moral maze tonight.

The panel, Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and inter-religious studies at Edinburgh University.

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