Big John

Today John Whittingdale, 63, walks back into the DCMS as maternity-cover-minister. 

He first took the Culture brief as Shadow Secretary in 2002/3, and again 2004/5. He was Secretary of State Proper from 2015 to 2016.  He probably thought his was never going back; in 2016 he gave a long interview to the Institute of Government.... 

"I suppose in terms of my legacy, the thing which has my name written on it is the BBC Charter which was an incredibly painful process in that there was massive lobbying and ‘Save the BBC’ campaigns, you know, fighting a threat which simply didn’t exist. But despite my numerous attempts to tell people that I had no intention of dismantling the BBC, there was this perception and we had this sort of propaganda war going on. Then I had my own personal relationship with Tony Hall [the Director General of the BBC] and we would meet: we had the exchanges in the newspaper columns or briefings in the press, we then had the formal negotiation where the BBC team would meet my officials, and then about once a month Tony and I would go out to dinner together, just the two of us, and that was very helpful. We actually reached an outcome which, you know, didn’t deliver everything I wanted but it delivered a lot of what I wanted and which he also was able to say he thought was a good outcome. I think that the Charter does represent really quite important changes to the way in which the BBC operates and, you know, it is my charter. So I’m happy to be remembered for that." 

He returned to DCMS as a minister in February 2020, leaving in 2021. 

Will he get another go after the next General Election ?  His constituency, Maldon, covers two councils. In Chelmsford, the Tories held on to their 21 seats, but the Libdems, in control since 2019, took two seats off independents. In Maldon, Conservative since 2007, the council has gone to no overall control, with the Tories losing 7 seats, six of them picked up by Libdems and one by Labour.