Why this should be David Dimbleby’s finest hour

The obvious can be so obvious that we discount it, supposing that other people must have thought of it already. There is an obvious candidate for chairman of the BBC governors. I have no idea whether he is going for it, but if not then he should be and people should be telling him so.

David Dimbleby would be at the same time a solid and an inspired choice for the helm of an anxious public body going though tempestuous times and in need of the confidence of public, politicians and its own employees. And, no, I have not just had lunch with Mr Dimbleby. I do know his programme’s editor (who is not the originator of this idea) but have never spoken with or met Dimbleby other than as one of the panellists on his BBC2 Question Time programmes. I know him only in the way most Spectator readers (and, for instance, the three million television viewers who watched Question Time the day after Lord Hutton reported) feel we do — as someone we implicitly trust: a holder-of-the-ring; sharp-minded, rigorous and authoritative, but gentle-mannered and fair.