Jonathan Ross has resigned from the BBC claiming that he was “uncomfortable” with the BBC’s plans to flog him in public on the streets of Britain. The show, suggested by BBC’s head of programming Alan Underarm-West, would have seen a half-naked Ross pulling a cart full of manure through some of Britain’s most crowded town centres before apologising to each town, and being flogged as part of the programme finale.

“It would have been great telly”, said Underarm-West. “Originally Jonathan was up for it, so long as we doubled his salary from £18m to £36m, which we were more than willing to do. But then we found out that we didn’t even have the £18m so we asked him to do it without the pay rise.”

Ross’s advisers worked night and day to reach a compromise with the BBC, asking the BBC if they could replace “semi-naked” with “wearing a suit”, “flogged” with “congratulated” and “pulling a cart full of manure” to “talking to C-list celebrities”. However, Underarm-West would not shift on the flogging aspect: “It’s something everyone would want to see”, he said. “What else do we pay our licence fee for?”

A spokesman for Ross said that the plans were “just not going to work”, adding “Jonathan was very ill at ease with the cart full of manure idea. It’s been done before, and the BBC were even considering weighing the cart down with his guests. Fine, but what if he’s interviewing Johnny Vegas? Yes, a public flogging would raise Jonathan’s profile, but would it further his career talking inane crap with celebrities who are trying to promote their own crap? Not at all.”

This was not the BBC’s first idea, either. They had previously mooted making a pilot of “Let’s Spit at Jonathan Ross”, an elimination-style gameshow to be shown on Saturday nights in which celebrities pair up with members of the public to spit at Jonathan Ross, having rejected the idea of filming a duel between Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross as it “didn’t have legs”.