The BBC statement comes after staff were ordered not to refer to the private life of the UK's Trade and Industry Secretary, Peter Mandelson. Several newspaper columnists and readers have condemned the BBC's decision.

The instruction to staff came after a contributor to BBC Two's Newsnight programme, the gay former Tory MP and newspaper columnist Matthew Parris, made an on-air reference to the sexuality of Mr Mandelson.

On Tuesday morning, in the Daily Mail newspaper, columnist Andrew Neil - who regularly presents BBC political programmes - calls the instruction "blatant censorship".

"... to single out a powerful and well-connected member of the political media village for special treatment is to invite the ridiculing of what is still this country's most important and valuable broadcasting institution," writes Mr Neil.

"I do know that none of the wayward Tories who had their private lives openly scrutinised during the unlamented John Major years were ever offered similar succour," he says.

Another columnist, Janet Daley in the Daily Telegraph, says the BBC has been seen to offer "a bizarre and unprecedented personal guarantee of protection to a favoured person".

Martin Wallace, a former BBC editor, is one of a number of readers to have written to the Daily Telegraph to complain.

"I cannot believe that In my years at the BBC - including a period as head of radio current affairs 1974-78 - such a directive would not have been laughed out of court (and withdrawn) within minutes of it landing on the desks of senior executives."

But the BBC's Controller of Editorial Policy, Philip Harding, in a letter to the same paper, defends the BBC's policy.

"The BBC will continue to respect the privacy of individuals, recognising that any intrusions have to be justified by serving a greater good," says Mr Harding.

"We will not discuss or report the private lives of individuals unless broader public issues are raised, as they were with the resignation of Ron Davies."

Mr Harding said staff were reminded of the BBC guidelines after two contributors started to discuss the private life of an individual on Newsnight without there being any public interest.