Jonathan Walker: Sir Michael Lyons will be back
Sep 17 2010 By Jonathan Walker
Farewell then to Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC Trust chairman who has announced he will stand down next May rather than seek a second term. There is speculation that Sir Michael has chosen to quit while he can rather than waiting to be sacked.
He was unlikely to be re-appointed by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the theory goes, partly because he angered the Government by resisting calls to publish more details about the amount the BBC pays its stars.
If Sir Michael has decided to jump before he was pushed then I think he’s made the right move.
Mr Hunt made his opinions clear back on July 26, when he was being questioned by backbenchers in the Commons.
Staffordshire MP Paul Farrelly (Lab Newcastle-under-Lyme) raised the topic of media neutrality in a thinly-disguised dig at Rupert Murdoch.
Mr Farrelly, a former journalist on the Observer, asked: “He will know that the British public value the political neutrality of TV news in this country, so will he confirm that the Government have no plans to change the rules governing political impartiality on TV news, and that they will expect broadcasters on digital terrestrial television to conform to those rules in the future?”
Labour MPs have been convinced there’s some kind of stitch-up between the Tories and Murdoch since The Sun came out in favour of the Conservatives in 2009 after backing Labour for 12 years.
Mr Hunt replied: “I can confirm that we have no plans to change the impartiality rules, but we will take no lessons on impartiality from the Opposition.
"There are two people responsible for impartiality in British broadcasting – the head of Ofcom and the head of the BBC Trust. One is a former Labour councillor and the other is a former Labour special adviser.”
The special adviser was Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, who used to work for Tony Blair. The former councillor was Sir Michael, who served as a Labour councillor in Birmingham for three years.
Sir Michael, who was also Birmingham’s chief executive for seven years, went on to carry out two major inquiries for Gordon Brown, and although this was in a “local government expert” capacity rather than as a Labour policy wonk, they may also count against him.
Mr Hunt’s comment in the House of Commons certainly suggested he had no faith in Sir Michael’s political neutrality.
But I doubt we’ve heard the last of Sir Michael, who is in his early 60s and surely has at least one big job left in him.
