It's only a part-time job, so I've got just the man to replace Sir Christopher at the BBC
STEPHEN GLOVER
Sir Christopher Bland is resigning as chairman of the BBC. Rosie Boycott is trying to raise money to launch a new London evening paper. How are these two things connected?
The betting is that Gavyn Davies, the BBC's deputy chairman, will replace Sir Christopher. He is the bearded economist who swapped his leftist economics for the free-market variety and went on to make a huge bundle at Goldman Sachs. Not surprisingly, he is a loyal Blairite — or perhaps Brownite. since his wife, Sue Nye, is the Chancellor's political secretary. So the government would be very happy to have Mr Davies as the next chairman of the BBC. On the other hand, his appointment would undoubtedly provoke shrieks of outrage from the Tories and the right-wing press. It would be correctly interpreted as another act of cronyism. After all, there is a convention that. politically speaking, the chairman and the director-general should not hail from the same neck of the woods. Since Greg Dyke, the present director-general, is an active supporter of New Labour, fair-minded people might think that the next chairman should be of a more independent stamp.
So the purpose of this column is to propose another candidate who might command the support of all parties. But before I mention his name, let me touch upon the activities of Rosie Boycott. The recently departed editor of the Daily Express has a City institution behind her, and hopes to launch a rival to the London Evening Standard. The last person who took on the panzer divisions of Associated Newspapers, which owns the Standard, was Robert Maxwell with his London Daily News. He failed. It failed. Ms Boycott, I gather, does not envisage a direct confrontation. She has in mind an upmarket paper which might be distributed in the City, West End, Chelsea and Notting Hill. The grubbier denizens of Croydon and Tulse Hill would never see it. The new paper would be heavy on listings, restaurant reviews and the arts.
Will it succeed? I don't know. My advice would be to creep into the market as surreptitiously as possible and pray that the boys at Associated Newspapers do not notice. But of course they would and, if such a paper were launched, they would be bound to take it seriously. The question would then arise as to what to do with Sir Max Hastings, editor of the Evening Standard. He has been in his
present job for more than five years and some observers suspect that his heart is no longer fully in it. Sometimes on a grey afternoon he surveys the London skyline and yearns for the squelch), fields of Wiltshire, If Ms Boycott does launch her new paper, it would be a cruelty to make Max stay on and wear himself down in a fight that might last months, even years.
When Sir Christopher Bland announced his resignation at the BBC, and his appointment as chairman of British Telecom, the Evening Standard ran an encouraging leader. Its general message was that Sir Christopher had heroically taken on a task (and a £750,000 salary) by the side of which wrestling with a pride of hungry lions looked easy. As it happens, Sir Max is an old and close friend of Sir Christopher. He has stayed in the lattees house in France. The two men have probably shot together. So the thought occurred to me. as I read that sympathetic leader, that Sir Christopher is in an ideal position to put in a good word for his old mucker as his successor.
Yes, Sir Max Hastings is my candidate as next chairman of the BBC. His qualifications for the job surely are obvious. First, being tall and having a booming voice, he looks the part. Second, he has some, but not too much, experience of broadcasting; his parents also came from that stable. Third, he is a sort of lapsed Tory who hasn't yet made the full conversion to New Labour, and would therefore probably be acceptable to both sides. As for Sir Max himself, the attractions to him of the job are equally plain. It would give him a position in society which is no less than his due and which the editorship of a London tabloid has never quite afforded. There would, it is true, be a loss of income. but I can think of ways of dealing with that. By far the most important consideration is that the chairmanship of the BBC is not a fulltime post. That means more time away from London, more days in Wiltshire, hunting, shooting and fishing.
Will it happen? I ardently hope so. Let us start a movement. Forget that renegade lefty Gavyn Davies with his funny beard and Thatcherite economics. Bring on our Max. His appointment as chairman of the BBC would be the best thing for the Corporation, the best thing for Sir Max Hastings, and, perhaps above all, the best thing for the El ening Standard.
Ihad said that I would write about the Daily News of Zimbabwe last week, but the BBC's idiotic extravaganza Band of Brothers got the better of me. Things are undoubtedly getting worse in Zimbabwe, with the so-called 'veterans' terrorising supporters of the opposition under the noses of the police. The Daily News is vulnerable to a further attack. Its editor, Geoffrey Nyarota, faces possible prosecution under a trumped-up charge of criminal defamation against President Robert Mugabe.
More than ever before, the paper is an indispensable source of truth. But it is struggling as a result of the bombing of its printing plant, carried out by government agents at the end of January. Though the Daily News is being printed by contract printers in Harare, pagination is much reduced, and sales, which were more than 100,000 a day, are limited to 65,000 or 70,000. A new press must be found to replace the damaged one, or the paper will face bankruptcy.
A few weeks ago undertakings from various donor agencies had emboldened the owners of the Daily News to think of acquiring a wondrous new press at the cost of several million pounds. Many of those promises have come to nothing, so the paper is now hoping to buy a reconditioned press at a cost of about £1 million. Even that will be difficult.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that readers have sent cheques amounting to nearly £1,500 to this magazine for the Daily News. Other readers have contributed to the Sunday Times appeal which stands at about £64,000. Further cheques are very welcome, and can be sent c/o the editor at The Spectator. But we remain a long way from the Sunday Times's original target of £1 million, which is what the Daily News needs.
So I have another proposal, which is that Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of the Sunday Times, should follow the inspiring lead of his newspaper. I am being serious. There is no better cause in journalism. The sums of money involved, though enormous to the Daily News, are minuscule to Mr Murdoch. If he were to make a substantial contribution, he would be forgiven all the things he has done which he ought not to have done, and become an everlasting hero to every lover of freedom in the world.
Previous page
