Meghan Markle is coming to host Junior MasterChef, thanks to one cheeky email and a producer who backed her when few others would. Let’s enjoy it, and let the politicians keep arguing over a bill nobody has sent.

Every so often a story comes along that is simply nice. The Daily Mail found one this week, though it took a few paragraphs to notice.

Here it is. Earlier this year, with Meghan copping it from all sides over her Netflix series, MasterChef’s executive producer decided to have a crack. He sent her what he calls a “press send and pray” email. By the sound of it, there was no grand pitch through layers of handlers, just an email and crossed fingers. She said yes. Her April appearance had the country talking, and now she’s coming back to host Junior MasterChef in Melbourne next year, alongside Poh Ling Yeow.

What I love most is what he said afterwards. While everyone else was taking shots at her show, he said the problem wasn’t her but the producers around her. That’s a man who knows talent when he sees it and isn’t shy about saying so. The Mail promised to take us inside the email and never actually tells us what it said, which is a shame. Whatever was in it, someone should frame it.

The gig itself could hardly be more wholesome. Meghan says she loves cooking with her own kids and that saying yes to coming back was easy. So we have a mum who cooks with her children, cheering on other people’s children as they cook.

Some critics have already fretted that she might introduce young viewers to a rainbow fruit platter. Let her. If the worst thing on Australian telly next year is kids getting excited about fruit, it will have been a very good year.

There’s something in it for Melbourne, too. Weeks of filming, a global audience, and entertainment sites around the world putting the city’s name in their headlines. That kind of attention doesn’t come cheap. This time it’s arriving for the price of one email.

Now, about that bill

Naturally, there had to be a row, and the Mail duly found one. Both major parties in Victoria have pledged not to spend taxpayer money on Meghan’s personal security, and the opposition leader has promised not a single cent.

Congratulations to all concerned. It’s not often both sides of Victorian politics agree on anything, and it’s heartwarming that they’ve found common ground. What they agree on is refusing a request that, as far as the article shows, nobody has made. There’s no ask in the story, no invoice and no letter from Montecito, or wherever the papers have her living this week. With a state election a month away, it’s a promise that costs nothing to make and nothing to keep. If only every election promise were this affordable.

The article even quietly concedes what the real question is. It isn’t who pays for her bodyguards. It’s whether police turn up to keep crowds safe when she makes public appearances. They do. They do it at the footy every weekend, and nobody runs a reader poll on whether the Collingwood cheer squad deserves protection.

Let them cook

So here’s my suggestion: take the good story for what it is. A producer backed someone much of the world had written off, and it worked. Next year a group of talented kids will get to cook in front of a duchess and one of the country’s best-loved cooks.

That’s a feel-good story with a happy ending. Judging by this week’s coverage, it’s the one recipe the tabloids still haven’t mastered.

Melbourne, set another place at the bench. And to whoever wrote that email: well played.