Manoeuvres

In the last century, BBC Director General Greg Dyke acceded to a Labour Government's request to put more public money (the licence fee) to work where there were Labour voters. Thus MediaCityUK, Salford. 

There'll be no new buildings on that scale today, but current BBC DG, TA Corporal Tim Davie will mimic Field Marshal Gove establishing barracks in Glasgow, Quartermaster Sunak setting up camp in Darlington (handy for passing Global CEO's, financiers and bankers) and Major General Raab with a small fort festooned with Union Jacks in East Kilbride. 

It's apparently part of a six year plan. Hard to write financially, when there's a licence fee review stuck in the middle. 

Your favourite blogger will be away from the keyboard at the moment of revelation. Here are some guesses - BBC Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys has spent much of lockdown working from a base near Wrexham, so the Education Cluster will move to - er, Leeds. Britain's top scientists are based in London, Cambridge and Oxford, so the Science and Environment team will move to, er, Bristol, where Natural History camera teams who film meerkats have lockers. Much of speech radio production based in London, who have had specialist studios built to world-beating standards in Broadcasting House, will be dispersed. Some elements of drama - tv, radio and commissioning - are heading to Digbeth. 

One guarantee - the Policy and Strategy teams, responsible for this, will still be in London. The moves aren't strategic; they're piecemeal gestures, designed to show Tim Davie as an action man.  They're not going to please a large number of creative staff already uncertain that the BBC is the thoughtful employer it used to be. Footsoldiers moved to pleased paymasters, not to make better programmes.