Cheeky chappie Tim Davie’s matey corporate-speak would have Lord Reith spinning in his grave

With his twinkly demeanour and hint of Sarf Landon vowels, BBC director-general Tim Davie radiated ease and mateyness in front of the public accounts committee on Thursday. 

Every sentence concluded with a geezery “yeah?” or “mmkay”. Here was the cheeky chappie, bookie’s runner promoted to head bean-counter - worlds away from the patrician snootiness of the Islington Lefties occupying most of the BBC’s topmost perches. The very model of a modern director-general.

Yet the DG showed a hint of steel as he defended the merger of BBC World News and the News Channel. When one committee member maundered piteously on the heartbreaking news of “three big news presenters” - long-serving veterans David Eades, Joanna Gosling and Tim Willcox - who have announced their resignations on learning of the restructuring, he sounded positively jaunty.

“It’s sad when people choose to take VR [voluntary redundancy] and leave,” said Davie, looking cheerful. “But we need less presenters. Sorry to be blunt, but we are going to make changes.” Aside from the decidedly un-Reithian solecism of a Cambridge English graduate confusing “less” and “fewer”, it was a sure-footed beginning.

Were northern voices being marginalised at the BBC, asked Olivia Blake of Sheffield Hallam? The dominant voice at Auntie these days is, of course, the estuarine accent favoured by Tim - the presence of one will all but guarantee you a slot on BBC comedy. Nevertheless, the director-general went on the chummy offensive again. “I notice our political editor has a bit of a Yorkshire twang,” he quipped, referencing Chris Mason. “I think we’re making progress.”

DG senses opportunity to bat for luvviedom

Next came a question of the “why-oh-why” variety from Cotswolds MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who confessed that he often staggered away from the Today show, finding the coverage “unremittingly negative towards this country”. We were in disgusted of Tunbridge Wells territory here - or, in this case, disgusted of Stow-on-the-Wold. “What more could the BBC do as a public broadcaster to promote a positive image of this country of the people and institutions within it?” he asked.

The DG positively purred. Sensing an opportunity to bat for luvviedom, he bragged that the corporation’s independence and self-criticism were unparalleled – and were their own form of national exceptionalism. “One of the reasons we are so admired around the world,” he explained, is that “we are not there to cheerlead and tell stories that puff up things”.

One after another, committee members made various personal pleas for the reinstatement of much-loved shows from their constituencies that were facing the chop – Cambridgeshire’s Look East and Radio Foyle in Derry, for example. Each, it was claimed, enjoyed a peculiarly close relationship with its local audience. 

Davie answered these questions as politely as he could - only vaguely hinting that if just a few thousand listeners and a dog tune in, it’s hard to justify the continued existence of such coverage, however distinguished.

But, if you share my emetic aversion to corporate-speak, then Tim Davie is perhaps not the director-general for you. He spoke of “information equality provision” and having “less resource”. “How do we get match fit in this current construct?” he’d say. It was enough to make anyone long for the return of top-hatted Pathe man.

Those major earth tremors you hear emanating from a remote cemetery in Inverness-shire? It’s the sound of Lord Reith spinning in his grave.