Celebrities and good causes bring out the cynic in us. Greatest TV Wind-Up Moments (Five), which sadly wasn’t about the best clockwork inventions featured on Tomorrow’s World, offered a reminder of how Chris Morris once persuaded several celebrities to warn young people about the perils of a new drug, “cake”. When it emerged that cake was merely a product of Morris’s imagination, his victims were indignant but Morris’s supporters argued that it showed how the famous are into self-promotion first, then philanthropy.

Heather Mills McCartney knows about such bad press. Isn’t she that ruthless gold-digger who replaced Linda McCartney (who, obviously, we loved all along, despite the nasty things we said) in the affections of Sir Paul? The new Mrs Macca may now be an animal campaigner like Linda, but she’s still seen as having a steely glint in her eye worthy of Cruella de Vil. Having to put up with such sniping — for marrying the man who wrote The Frog Chorus, remember — requires a thick skin. The McCartneys v the Fur Trade (BBC One) showed that hers is armour-plated. She’s well aware what the media thinks of her and doesn’t seem to care.

The programme also showed that real fur is back on the catwalks. Naomi Campbell, once a figurehead for the “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign, now sports pelts professionally while “It” girls, fashion editors and hip-hop stars are dedicated followers of furry fashion. This does not please the scarily tenacious Heather. Despite the programme’s title, the contribution of her self-confessed “not very confrontational” husband was mostly a joint interview.

It was Heather who was seen handing out flyers to London shoppers, invading Jennifer Lopez’s fur-loving fashion-label offices in New York and trying to interest bored-looking journalists in Brussels in the need for a European ban on the Chinese trade in dog and cat fur. That stole you’re wearing could be Tiddles! Even the threat of sweat causing her prosthetic leg to come off didn’t seem to slow her down.

For the sake of BBC balance, other interviewees included a veteran New York furrier and a stylist for a younger generation of celebrity fur enthusiasts. “My furs are well taken care of, they’re alive to me!” she declared as if auditioning for Desperate Housewives. The commentator Richard D. North made the point that mink farming in Britain was banned in the 1990s when the animals’ welfare had been comparable with chickens and pigs: “If you eat a bacon sandwich, you can wear a fur coat, morally and ethically.”

Personally, I think it’s hard to trust anyone in a fur coat — it suggests that they’re only comfortable in someone else’s skin. Yet I still wanted North’s views put directly to the McCartneys. They were never challenged. Instead we had the occasional Hello! magazine moment as Heather and Paul welcomed us to their farm, “a refuge from the pressures of celebrity” as Fiona Bruce’s voiceover informed us.

Still, one couldn’t remain impartial after seeing footage showing an alsatian being skinned alive in China. Even the jaded Brussels journalists were ruffled by it. Paul was also made uneasy when Heather asked him in mid-interview to write to the fur-wearing celebrities that he knew: “You know Diana Ross, don’t you? Do you know Aretha Franklin?” It was clear that Paul was able to open doors but it was Heather who would be walking through them. Apparently Paul can phone Tony Blair’s office and the PM will return his call within ten minutes if he’s in the country, and in a couple of hours if he’s not. Perhaps Bono will now let slip that the Pope is back on the blower to him within the hour. I think we need a new chart of world-leader access on Top of the Pops; the show seems to be revamped every other week, so why not? “No one is Beatle proof,” Heather remarked, although it made you wonder which leader Ringo has on speed-dial.

Another husband momentarily unsettled by his wife could be seen in Eating With . . . (BBC Two) in which the former Labour MP Oona King explained how this “queen of frozen food” was awakened to the joys of non-processed food only after marrying a Neapolitan. He grimaced when she admitted that she learnt to cook to save her marriage when he declared that, after his ten years in the kitchen, it was time she did her fair share. His disdain as she ordered a cappuccino after 10am said more about the Italians’ serious regard for food and drink than a whole series of Jamie Oliver touring in a clapped-out van.

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