In case you had been in any doubt, the prime minister and his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, greater than give a rattling about who runs the BBC an
In case you had been in any doubt, the prime minister and his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, greater than give a rattling about who runs the BBC and intend to have a big affect over the appointment of a brand new director-general.
The present chairman of the BBC board, David Clementi, confirmed acute political sensitivity in persuading Tony Corridor to face down as director-general sooner than he would in any other case have carried out.
The purpose is that Clementi’s personal time period of workplace ends in simply over a yr. And had Corridor stayed in put up longer than that, Johnson and Cummings would have chosen a brand new chair to switch Clementi with the categorical objective of guaranteeing that Corridor’s successor wouldn’t be hostile to their ambitions for wholesale reform of how the BBC is funded and what it does (underneath the foundations, the federal government chooses the BBC chair, the BBC board chooses the DG).
So Clementi seems to have gained a tactical battle over Downing Road by taking management of the method to switch Corridor. Even so Cummings and Johnson haven’t surrendered and intend to have a voice.
Here’s what I do know.
Based on a nicely positioned Downing Road supply, if the BBC’s board and Clementi ‘attempt to put somebody like Purnell in [as DG], we’ll put in a boss whose first job is to fireside him…The likes of Purnell [would be] “lifeless on arrival”.’
This can be a reference to the previous Labour minister, James Purnell, who’s the BBC’s director of radio. It’s not clear but whether or not Purnell is a candidate to succeed Corridor.
What’s extra, Cummings and his colleagues are actively looking for attainable director-general candidates they regard as sympathetic to their goals for the company.
All of which makes Clementi’s process all of the trickier – as a result of though he’s duty-bound to guard the BBC from political interference and to nominate a director-general perceived to be greatest positioned to guard the company’s independence, he’s additionally conscious that the federal government has the ability to considerably change the scope of what the BBC does and the way it’s funded via future negotiations on its constitution and licence charge.
For what it’s value, Cummings’ and Johnson’s views on what they assume is fallacious with the BBC usually are not precisely clear, aside from that they need ‘massive change’.
They’ve mentioned they assume non cost of the licence charge ought to stop to be a prison offence. And so they have raised the query whether or not within the period of streaming – Netflix, Apple et al – the BBC ought to transfer to a subscription mannequin, and away from being funded via what’s in impact a ballot tax.
I additionally perceive Cummings is satisfied that ‘the BBC can not carry on cannibalising everybody else’s web sites’ – which the BBC would furiously deny that it does.
After which there’s the thorny query of what the obligation to be neutral means for the BBC’s essential information service – with the BBC and Johnson fully unaligned on whether or not the company was neutral through the election.
All of which implies Clementi wants to seek out the broadcasting equal of Henry Kissinger to switch Corridor. It gained’t be straightforward.
Robert Peston is ITV’s political editor. This text initially appeared on his ITV information blog