Talking sense on Victoria Derbyshire but trying desperately to revive his image as a caring, experienced professional. I do wonder whether the BBC is aware of his involvement in the Cliff Richard fiasco. If they were, was it wise to book him onto the screens?

much of the BBC seem to live in a rariefied atmosphere where the happenings of mere mortals is beneath them.

In some ways it's good , in others scary.

But the DG Lord Hall Hall..he's a worry.

The BBC isn't always careful about who it lets on to its programmes touting their expertise. A few years ago they did a spate of interviews on TV and radio of representatives of a self-described independent financial advisory firm as financial and taxation experts. The firm is exceedingly dodgy, using unqualified salesmen to pose as independent financial advisers to mislead clients into costly products that drain their savings but make the firm lots of money. The idea that its employees could be financial and taxation experts is farcical. However, it is very good at pretending to be what it isn't and very good at self-promotion. It had basically used the BBC (which had actually done a Panorama documentary a few years previously effectively warning about the firm - something the BBC had apparently forgotten), as a means to get some free publicity and confer on itself the aura of a supposedly legitimate operation -- and probably get even for the documentary in quite a clever way. That free publicity dried up when various people at the BBC were warned about the firm.

Funnily enough, said firm's CEO recently claimed in an interview that his firm was being paid by the BBC to advise its employees on their pensions. If true, that would also be sweet revenge for the firm, while being another embarrassing lapse on the part of the BBC to check out who it's dealing with.