The BBC is on fire. It needs a new Director-General. The runners and riders:
There is some talk in news circles about the structure of the Director-General role changing, including a rumour that it could be split in two to better manage at-times competing functions. The proposal would be for a full-time journalist to head up the editorial side of the BBC at the DG level, and a seperate non-journalist businessperson to head up the commercial functions, also at the same DG rank. Many at the top of the BBC feel this double-header would unencumber the role. The job is a poisoned chalice when it comes under media scrutiny…
Despite the government not having a technical role in the appointment it is a highly politically-charged process and there will be significant lobbying and jostling from all sides, including from Downing Street. Labour sees the analogue BBC as its own territory and wants to install a loyalist. Is the ‘plot’ to remove Davie actually an own goal for the right?
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”