Michael Lyons

Exactly how stupid are we supposed to be? Does anyone seriously believe that Sir Michael Lyons has been appointed as anything other than a Treasury stooge. I mean, lets be objective here, what do we know?

1) He's some sort of incredibly dull local government cost cutter.

2) He's a member of the Labour Party

3) He's worked for Gordon Brown

4) He has absolutely no experience of broadcasting

Which. I'm afraid, equals Treasury Stooge. Gordon Brown hates the BBC as can be witnessed by his recent evil License Fee settlement. He basically sees the BBC as just another government department that needs to be bullied and brow beaten until it loses the will to live, and Lyons is, in his mind, the man to do it.

There is though, just one problem. Every government of whatever flavour thinks the BBC needs bringing into line and they're forever sending missionaries to knock it into shape. Trouble is, they always go native, and then you have an even bigger problem - your stooge is, sometimes unknown even to themselves, secretly working for the BBC, but still privy to governments' privy thoughts.

I mean Tony and the entire establishment attenpted to fuck the BBC over Hutton. He may have won on paper, but the court of History gives a different verdict. The government were lying and everyone knows it, whatever anyone else says.

Lyons has no chance. Media is a tricky world. You need big guns and he's got nuthin, Realistically appointing such a non entity can only have one of three outcomes : 1) He simply becomes a government catspaw, taking his orders direct from Gordy 2) He goes native and becomes a BBC evangelist 3) He becomes politically irrelevant as the real players sidestep him completely.

Time will tell, but I'm going for 1. With a side bet on 3.