Case study

It's a living, breathing case study in minor crisis management, not yet over.  International Grandmaster of Reputation Polishing Sir Robbie Gibb, currently available through the household name of Kekst CNC, is on Day 3 of his attempt to show he's an entirely appropriate, responsible appointment as a non-executive director of the BBC. 

It started on Friday with the FT reporting that Sir Robbie had texted Director of News Fran Unsworth, to tell her she could not appoint emerging candidate Jess Brammar to mind the BBC 24-hour news channel. Later that day, the BBC Press Office, presumably with the knowledge of chairman Richard Sharp and DG Tim Davie, and driven by spinner Robbie, tweeted that all principles had been adhered to (apart from the one about not ending a sentence with a preposition). 

Today, Atticus in The Sunday Times, written by Gabriel Pogrund, hears from "allies of Gibb". These suggest that unsuccessful internal candidates for the job raised questions about the impending appointment, and thus Gibb reached for his oar. Why "allies of Gibb" think this is a satisfactory excuse for a non-executive texting an instruction to an executive (who used to be three pay grades above him) is not made clear. 

Sir Robbie's other current jobs include protecting the integrity of The Jewish Chronicle. Ms Brammar is between jobs after taking redundancy from the HuffPo website, sitting at home in Peckham with her one-year-old child.  The task ahead for whoever gets the News Channel job is not to bring down the government, but produce a reasonable quality service with an ever-smaller budget for a management who act as if they wish they'd never started it.