Now she tells us

Nine months in, and nearly at the end of her time in charge, interim BBC Chair Elan Closs Stephens has summoned up enough courage to be frank about relationships with the Government, in an interview with the Financial Times. 

She says Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer is “extremely able”, but reveals that their scheduled monthly talks have become almost weekly affairs. She calls for more thinking before ministers use “the speed dial”.

“In terms of free speech, a government minister has the right to pick up the phone to anybody. What is at issue here is the respect shown to the individual who tries to define what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate — which is my role.” Getting that respect has been “difficult”. Have their conversations been fraught? “Yes.”

The FT says that Frazer asked to talk to rank-and-file BBC staff, during the recent mid-term Charter Review. Closs Stephens seems to have successfully warned her off: “We cannot ever be simply an instrument of government. We are not a government body — we are corporation through charter . . . Although we want to share detail, there is also a need to safeguard decision-making and independence.”