Newly appointed BBC chair Sir David Cecil Clementi is surely the very archetype of the establishment grandee. Once chairman of the Pru, this old Wykehamist and Oxonian was also deputy governor of the Bank of England. Sir David is best known to Gazette readers, of course, for masterminding the overhaul of legal services that gave us alternative business structures and the Legal Services Board.

Now he has landed the ultimate establishment sinecure.

With his past efforts on legal services in mind, we would respectfully encourage Sir David to heed the words of his illustrious BBC predecessor, Lord Reith: ‘He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the public wants is often creating a fictitious demand for low standards which he will then satisfy.’

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