Me for DG

A manifesto for the BBC’s top job

Messrs Egon Zehnder, ­headhunters, are helping the BBC find its next director general. The involvement of these swanky international executive search agents is depressing. Their ­American-‘flavored’ website brags about helping companies seek ‘competitive advantage’ and identify ‘talented business leaders’. If the BBC is to have a future, it must raise its vision above such mercenary concepts. But at least Egon Zehnder may ensure that favourites for this influential position are drawn not simply from the upper, left-­facing slopes of BBC management. That danger was evident when the Guardian (whose editor may also be a contender) ran an early list of possible runners. Driven to rage by that slew of establishment liberals, I decided to offer myself as a candidate. This has met with a certain level of mockery, but we fight on, as Mrs Thatcher said, we fight to win.

Let Egon Zehnder schmooze the grandees.