LONDON , England ( CNN ) -- The daughter of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been axed by a BBC television show after she made an offensive `` off-air '' remark , the corporation has confirmed . Margaret Thatcher ( left ) and her daughter Carol Thatcher in Southampton , England in June 2008 . According to reports in the British media , Carol Thatcher referred to a tennis player as a `` golliwog '' back stage during the filming of The One Show last Thursday . The remark was made about a male tennis player taking part in the Australian Open tournament in Melbourne . The term is an offensive word for black people used in several countries . She was immediately challenged about her gaffe but dismissed it as a `` joke . '' The BBC said it considered `` any language of a racist nature wholly unacceptable , '' before adding that it had hoped Thatcher , 55 , would issue an unconditional apology but she had declined to do so . The remark is thought to have upset a number of people on the show , with one BBC spokesman quoted by The Times newspaper as saying : `` We will no longer be working with Carol Thatcher on The One Show . '' However , the corporation said on its Web site that she would not be banned from the BBC as a whole . Thatcher 's agent is now demanding an apology from the BBC , the corporation reported Wednesday . Meanwhile , Thatcher 's spokesman told The Times Wednesday that she made the remark in a conversation with the show 's presenter Adrian Chiles back stage . `` Carol never intended any racist comment , '' he said . `` She made a light aside about this tennis player and his similarity to the golliwog on the jam pot when she was growing up . There 's no way , obviously , that she would condone any racist comment -- we would refute that entirely . It would not be in her nature to do anything like that . `` It is disgusting that we 've had a leak of private conversations in the green room -- the BBC has more leaks than Thames Water . '' The Golliwog first appeared as a character in an 1895 book , `` The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls , '' described by author Florence Kate Upton as `` a horrid sight , the blackest gnome . '' Based on a black minstrel doll Upton played with as a child , the character inspired early 20th-Century dolls by several manufacturers and was used as the trademark of James Robertson & Sons , a British jam and preserve maker , in the early 1900s . The term `` wog '' became a widely used racial slur for dark-skinned people that grew in popularity among some Britons during World War II . As late as the 1960s , soldiers in Great Britain 's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders military regiment wore a brooch of one of the Robertson characters for each Arab they killed , according to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids , Michigan . The term `` golliwog '' is used as racial slur in Germany , England , Ireland , Greece and Australia , according to the museum 's Web site . Carol Thatcher , a winner in 2005 of reality television show `` I 'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here ! , '' was a regular contributor on the BBC prime-time show .
Carol Thatcher referred to a tennis player as a `` golliwog '' backstage . Thatcher , 55 , described her comment as an example of the kind of language she used in private conversations with friends. Thatcher spokesman : `` Carol never intended any racist comment ''