Civil approach ?

Jake Kanter at Deadline is having a good run with emails. His latest discovery - a message from DCMS civil servant Robert Specterman-Green to BBC Company Secretary Phil Harrold, about his Department's 'expectation' that the BBC should look into emerging reports of the activities of a BBC presenter 'urgently and proactively'. Mr Specterman-Green wanted to be kept informed of 'developments and progress in this matter'. 

It steps over a line in which the Board and the Executive should be left to run the BBC, once the Chair has been appointed by the Government. Either Mr Specterman-Green knew that, and was pushed into writing the email by a minister new-ish to the job, or he genuinely thought it a matter for Government. 

Robert Specterman-Green, 45 (Chigwell School, MA Modern and Medieval Languages, Pembroke College Cambridge, European School of Management, Paris) was a fast-track civil servant, and joined the DCMS in 2019. He led the panel assessing candidates to represent 'England' on the BBC Board, which resulted in the appointment of Sir Robbie Gibb. He spent seven days at the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool; city selection for the event was led, unusually, by BBC Company Secretary Phil Harrold. 

After the event, the Liverpool Echo reported: Robert Specterman-Green, director of media and creative industries at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, told a panel assembled at the one-day conference the government department had “taken its hat off to Liverpool” and revealed he had been given a hug by Martin Österdahl, executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, who said the city had “set a new bar” for the event.