Things must be bad for the increasingly troubled Department for Culture Media and Sport when a loathed Chairman of the BBC has to ride to your defence. Chris Patten told a Press Gallery lunch that the department must not be scrapped, despite the Olympics being over. Since then Maria Miller has driven press regulation into a brick wall and their only other significant project – broadband – is being rolled out at dial-up speed. Patten’s hand wringing will do little to convince Tories that scrapping the department is a bad idea.