Lord Patten huffed and puffed as he told Tory MP Philip Davies that he was deluded if he thought he was “going to do a diary for you in order to satisfy some populist pursuit of somebody you didn’t want to run an organisation which you don’t want to exist, you are kidding yourself,” He then tried humour to hide the fact that he is a part time Chairman and struggling to justify the £110,000 of licence fee payers cash:

“I think it’s a thoroughly impertinent question. I think you’re entitled to know how much time I’m spending, I think you’re entitled to put down freedom of information requests for how many days I spend in the office, or how many days I spend doing other things. Do you want to know my toilet habits? What else do you want to know?”

Apparently asking about how BBC money is spent is “impertinent”.

The baiting-Tory wasn’t going to take it lying down though, telling Patten, “I know it’s difficult for you to refrain from being patronising’ and asking him to try at least shed some light on his “grand title, which I’m sure would have appealed to you”. Miaow.