Oliver's my boy

Well, there's a sudden end today to the Twitter account GlobalBeeb, the self-effacing soubriquet adopted by the BBC's Craig Oliver, as he was put in charges of Auntie's English services abroad last year.   He's now off to Number 10 to serve as the Coalition's Communications Officer.   Things seemed to move fast for Craig - he says he was first approached at the weekend; his last tweet was 17 hours ago (it's around 6pm now); and given that the BBC wishes, editorially at least, to distance itself from Government, his boss Peter Horrocks has wished him farewell today.

In his short time with the Global operation, there's been plenty to do - and plenty of cuts to make. Some at World Service were surprised that Craig had so much time for fact-finding trips.  As well as cuts ahead, Craig was about to be re-embraced into the bosom of Helen Boaden, as "Journalism" becomes "News" with the emergence of the Byford Gap. Who would have thought that Number 10 would be more welcoming ?

At Sky News, Adam Boulton takes a typically pugnacious view of today's events "For independent political coverage stick with Sky News. Oliver has good mates at BBC and ITV. The BBC thought it worth cutting away from Egypt for 5 minutes coverage of this unknown’s new job. Nick Robinson’s blog profile went up before the official announcement from Downing Street. Welcome, Craig Oliver".