When ? Part 2

So far we've assumed that Lord Hall came to his decision to resign as BBC Director General through private contemplation. It is, of course, entirely possible that someone touched him on the shoulder. Again, the key questions are who and when ?  These are only ever likely to answered indirectly by contemporary historians following in the tracks of Jean Seaton, Peter Hennessey and Michael Cockerell.

Lord Hall's appointment as a National Gallery trustee was announced on 28th October last year, via the Cabinet Office; Boris Johnson first proposed a General Election on October 24th. If Lord Hall had made his mind up then, or had it made up for him, it was entirely sensible to keep it quiet during the election campaign.

There's an alternative view. At the beginning of a New Year, you'd expect BBC contact between at least the DCMS, and perhaps higher, on the agenda for the year ahead. The BBC is still struggling with how it identifies pensioners over 75 on pension credit, to secure their free licences, starting in June. The easy way would be for the Government to share the list of those on the benefit, but as it opposes the move, there's no reason for the Civil Service to make it easy.

Strangely, Lord Hall got to 15th January before his New Year message to staff, from Cardiff. Frankly, it was a little underwhelming. And there was a vacuum, where top Tories were waiting for a BBC-led response to future funding: "And this year we have to prepare the ground and develop our arguments for the next licence fee settlement in 2022. We’re lucky we won a charter that runs to 2027. We should start developing our ideas for that too - what we do at the end of that period - demonstrating that public service broadcasting with the BBC at its heart is an eternal idea."

Eternal ?  Five days later, Lord Hall announced his resignation.