No no no

Thrice nay, from the BBC Trust.  An exasperated Lord Patten (St Benedict's and Balliol, Oxford) has turned down three invitations from self-effacing Bill Cash MP (Stonyhurt and Lincoln, Oxford) to appear in front of his European Scrutiny Select Committee, to discuss BBC coverage of the EU.

In his most recent refusal, you can detect the good Lord's own turn of phrase... "Let me write this one, Kroll."

As part of our role I and my colleagues appear quite properly in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, and neither attempts to engage with us — as you are proposing to do — on the editorial decisions of the BBC. Since becoming BBC Trust Chairman in May 2011, I myself have appeared before these two committees a total of six times....... 

We wonder if you have considered that the result of you asserting your right to call me before your committee on this issue is that BBC Trustees could in future be required to appear before any select committee to discuss the coverage of the BBC in its particular area of responsibility. It is not therefore beyond the bounds of possibility to conceive that in quite short order we could be expected to answer to say the Home Affairs Committee on the BBC's coverage of that area, or the Foreign Affairs Committee on international stories. We can't believe that is what was intended when the Royal Charter was drafted and we do not believe that it is consistent with the ideal of an independent Trust protecting the BBC from undue political interference.