Lord Hall with the Queen as part of his current job as Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House.

I knew the then plain Tony Hall when I worked in the BBC newsroom in the 1980s and he was the BBC executive who phoned me to end my period presenting sport for BBC weekend news bulletins because I was a spokesman for the Green Party.

Quite how saying Manchester United beat Chelsea today conflicted with saying that the economic system is destroying the ecosystem has always bewildered me. He never actually said 'You've got to go because' ... Tony's style is more 'What do you think is best? Er, how do you see it? Mmmm, can you see the problem?'

He always seemed a nice bloke to me, but whether he has the backbone to confront the forces seeking to destroy what is left of BBC journalism is quite another thing. Surprise me, Tony, I'd be really delighted. But breath, not, my and holding? Please rearrange into a well known phrase or saying.

(Still, some advice, for what it is worth - don't listen to the Establishment-to-his-DNA beached-whale that is BBC Trust Chairman, Christopher Patten. Whatever he says, do the opposite, and you can't fail to do at least a decent job.)

You certainly can't be anything like as bad as the former deputy Director General who I worked with when he was a producer in the BBC regions. How he remembered to breathe always surprised me, let alone run the BBC.

But since when did the most able rise to the top of a rigged system?

Read more ...