Andy on hand

Richard Sharp is doing things in the wrong order. On Monday morning, presumably with the help of BBC Communications, he issued an email to all staff. On Monday evening, according to The Times, he hired a crisis management specialist. Maybe Andrew Garfield, of Garfield Advisory, would have spotted the spelling mistake.   Then again, Mr Garfield calls himself a 'Corporate Communications Profeesional [sic]' on Linkedin. 

Presumably Mr Garfield, rather than the other Andrew, Andrew Scadding of the BBC Corporate Affairs team, will be at Mr Sharp's elbow when he faces the grumpy MPs on the Commons Culture Select Committee in just under two weeks' time.  The MPs will need barrister-written questions to get past Sharp's dead bat, rather than the usual very-pleased-with-himself 'gotcha' tactics of John Nicholson. 

Andrew Garfield arrived at Oxford University in 1980, two years after Richard Sharp left. He edited Isis magazine, studied Russian and French and parlayed the combination into jobs with Brussels newsletters, before becoming Brussels correspondent of The Scotsman. Roles with the Evening Standard, Scotland on Sunday and The Independent, before a move into financial PR with Brunswick in 2001.  He's been self-employed since 2017. 

Mr Garfield represents Highgate on the Board of Deputies, and has supported calls for the UK to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move scrapped by Rishi Sunak in November last year.