Jason

Jason Horton, 45, has emerged as Interim Director of BBC England; no news immediately available on Helen Thomas. 

Born into a travelling RAF family, he used to have "Hong Konger at heart" on his Twitter feed. He came back to Henley College for his A-Levels, then to Nottingham Trent for a BA in broadcast journalism. His cv says he was the first BBC TV reporter on the scene of the Potters Bar train crash in 2002. 

He rose to manage Radio Cambridgeshire, thence to run BBC South, where, within a year, he was on screen because of an NUJ strike.