The Time - 10am on Thursday 10th March.
The Place - The Grimond Room in Portcullis House.
The Occasion - pre-appointment hearing with the Government's preferred candidate for the role of the Chairman of the BBC Trust.
In the corridor outside, the media pack compares notes about what is a unique event, the first time that the appointment of the top job in the BBC has been subject to scrutiny by a parliamentary committee.
There is a suddenly flurry and a well-fed Lord with a shock of white hair, deep sunk eyes and a wry smile, moves modestly past the hacks to sit in what most candidates would have thought of as a hot seat, but which Lord Christopher Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University and former Chairman of the Conservative Party, last Governor of Hong Kong etc etc etc, makes seem very cool indeed.
Over the next two hours or so the parliamentary committee, polite but forensic, probes Lord Patten's politics, business interests, possible biases and rather elitist listening habits. The noble Lord never raises his voice and cracks a number of rather good jokes, but resolutely refuses to exhibit any passion until a committee member remarks on its absence.
Chris Patten then starts to express his "passion" for the BBC and much of its output without departing from that same dry low-key delivery.
He is only discomforted when having to confess that the last time he watched Eastenders was before he ate his last MacDonalds, surely as a desperate student late at night in the 1960s. One MP suggests that Patten's idea of dumbing down was switching from BBC4 to BBC2 and the candidate admitted that he only listens to Radio 1 by accident when he is trying to find Radios 3 and 4.
For these last two networks he expresses undying love, like a young Romeo, and we soon learn that Melvyn Bragg, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Bowen are safe in the rosy glow of his approval.
However Lord Patten made clear that he expects to be unpopular in his BBC role and that "there will be all hell let loose" as the corporation is forced to cut its spending on programmes.
I sat in on the hearing together with Jocelyn Hay, President of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, the public service broadcasting pressure group, and afterwards asked her what she had made of it:
Later that afternoon I caught up with the John Whittingdale, Chairman of the committee which had lightly grilled Lord Patten:
By the way if you want to get a complete record of what the new BBC Chairman said at the hearing you can find it in the archive at www.parliamentlive.tv. Transcripts will shortly be available from The Stationary Office.
Next week in Feedback I'll be talking to the Controller of Radio 1 and BBC1Xtra so if you have any questions you'd like me to ask him, please send them to [email protected]
Roger Bolton is presenter of Feedback
- Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
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- Lord Patten was the subject of Radio 4's Profile two weeks ago.