No to BBC VAR

There's a lot of talk about a review of the BBC's election coverage. Puritans-in-thought-only, like John Whittingdale, hope for a large document, cataloguing failings in detail, that they can wave round the golf club and say, "I told you I'd do something about it....". Ideally it would be followed by a kneeling cavalcade of Laura Kuenssberg, Andrew Neil, Rob Burley, Jonathan Munro and Fran Unsworth, all in Primark sackcloth and ashes, scourging the one in front with branches cut from a nasty supermarket shrub, intoning " Yes, there will be 40 new hospitals - I'm so sorry".

I really hope there's a un-minuted half-day of reflection somewhere undiscoverable in BH, but no more than that. This is time for a bold BBC News, ready for a strategic shake-up driven by a wish to serve and connect with the UK and the World in challenging, engaging and thoughtful new ways. Not one reduced and cowed by wrong-headed bullies.

By the way, if the OFCOM review of BBC News and Current Affairs actually relies on the stack of evidence it has commissioned, then there ain't many problems. Save for people in North Wales being underserved by news from Cardiff.