All smiles

A genial interview with Lord Patten on Newsnight last night failed to flap the new chairman of the BBC Trust - available here, starting at 35 minutes in.  Recorded inside the wide open spaces of the Lyons suite at 80 Great Portland Street, the Lord admitted he was merely in the foothills of the Himalayas when it came to grasping the BBC's management structure.  However, phrases like "Delivering Quality First" fell effortlessly from his tongue, which suggests continuing assimilation by Trust apparatchiks and the Thom(p)son Twins.

Some Paxman questions seem to come from the heart. "It's absolute rubbish, isn't it, that good people can't be recruited because the salaries are being capped ?".

And Lord Patten revealed that it could all have been so different.  He applied for a job as a BBC management trainee in 1966, and was successful.  He turned it down for a role as desk officer in the "Research Department" of Conservative Party Central Office.