Lord Patten and Sir Richard Lambert have to prove they are the big figure that the BBC needs
Sometime in the next week or two, a peer, a professor and a permanent secretary will propose two names to Jeremy Hunt to become the next chairman of the BBC Trust. And unlike that other decision where Jeremy Hunt has to pretend he is all "quasi-judicial", the culture secretary is actually allowed to discuss the two names with David Cameron and presumably little Nick Clegg too. It may pay �110,000 a year for a four day week, which is apparently considered modest these days, but it is the single most important appointment that will be made in the media business this year.
Yet, it is a race that has barely excited any public debate (although there have been other distractions). Which is interesting, because who knows what the candidates could be proposing in interview. Will they get extra marks for supinely agreeing that the BBC Trust needs to become a roll over and die "licence fee payers' trust"? The kind of outfit that sees its job as ensuring that the BBC responds to some rightwing newspaper agenda aimed at reducing the public broadcaster's scale and ambition? A certain bloody-minded independence needs to be at the heart of the mission.
Which brings us to the individual candidates. There's no point dressing this up ? this is a two-horse race between Tory grandee Lord Patten and Sir Richard Lambert, who edited the Financial Times when it was fashionable for the business press to support the Labour party. Richard Hooper, a veteran regulator, has a slight chance, if both of those two blow up ? but it would be hard to bet on Dame Patricia Hodgson, whose appointment would prompt unnecessary conflict with Mark Thompson, or Anthony Fry, an urbane investment banker who has done well to reach this phase.
The conventional thinking here is to conclude that Patten's candidacy is flawed because he is a former Conservative cabinet minister. Which takes the focus on to Lambert. Now, Sir Richard has a lot to recommend him. A serious FT lifer, he edited the title for 10 years from 1991, a golden sort of period if that is possible for a Pink 'Un. Lambert's generation of proteges dominate the media, from Robert Peston to Will Lewis, while a good relationship with Robert Thomson, now the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, gives him an entree to Rupert Murdoch.
His other advantage, from a Tory point of view, is that he is not a Tory. His appointment would allow ministers to say they have not adopted a partisan approach ? and Lambert's parting shot as CBI director general last week would reinforce that impression. That was the one where he accused ministers of lacking "vision" for the economy and being without a "strategy" for growth. Well, we all got the message there, but it is hard to get past a few nagging questions about his candidacy ? Lambert is a cautious man, not brilliant at confrontation ? at a time when what the BBC needs is a tough cookie at the top able to rebuke the super-confident Thompson when he gets it wrong, and do battle with politicians and the tabloid press when the corporation has got it right.
All of which takes you back to Patten. He may be a Tory, but so was Sir Christopher Bland, and the BBC prospered under him. Interestingly, Labour is not militantly against Patten ? while, if anything, his real foes are on the right of the Tory party. Patten's former chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, is nicely ensconced in David Cameron's office, which is a handy place to have a friend. And it was Patten who showed he could stand up to Thatcher, Major and Murdoch (the last two over Hong Kong), which shows he is very much his own man.
The BBC needs a big figure at a time when its funding is under pressure. Lambert could do the job more than competently, but Patten has the edge.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/31/bbc-trust-chairman-dan-sabbagh
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