Break a leg

Samir Shah faces his toughest hour later today, appearing as Chairman of the BBC before the Culture Select Committee from 4.30pm. 

He first came to the BBC in 1987, brought in by LWT co-worker and friend John Birt to run television current affairs. With BBC colleagues in those days, he had a sense of humour and self-awareness, joshing that, as the only person of colour in Birt's prateorian guard, "they can’t sack me”.  Many noted his honest attention to detail in programme-making; others saw a deep unwillingness to expose himself to controversy or confrontation and a preference not to meet the staff if at all possible, during the height of Birt revolution. 

He's been rehearsing again, and clearly has two things to say; that he wants to appoint a Deputy Director General, as a lightning rod against future bolts from the stormy world of journalism, and that he's going expand his Board sub-committee on Editorial Standards to reflect a wider range of views. 

It won't fill up the hour enough to protect him from the question of when, exactly, he personally decided the Trump edit was dodgy. And, sitting alongside him will be Sir Robbie Gibb, who has so enjoyed the power of the Editorial Standards group, that he's set up a mini-version in his BBC fiefdom of "England"; has Samir spotted that ?