There are calls for the heads of Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, chair of the BBC Trust Lord Patten and the new director-general George Entwistle. How soon will they call for the head of the headhunter?
When the BBC was looking for a new head of the trust, Dominic Loehnis from Egon Zehnder handled the process that led to Lord Patten being given his £110,000-a-year role in 2011 with the approval of David Cameron. And when the Beeb sought to replace Mark Thompson as DG this year, Patten appointed Loehnis to offer “advice about the suitability of each candidate”.
Loehnis was responsible for handling the applications from the 69 candidates who applied for the job that eventually went to Entwistle, then head of BBC Vision. In July Entwistle was appointed unanimously by the board, who forgave him for being part of the team that oversaw the coverage of the Queen’s Jubilee flotilla just a few weeks before.
Now that Patten and Entwistle are both under fire for their handling of the Savile scandal, questions are being asked about whether they really were the most suitable candidates for the job.
Just in case anyone thinks David Cameron can escape unscathed from this crisis, it is worth mischievously noting that he and Loehnis are cut from the same cloth. Both Eton and Oxford educated, they became good friends in their twenties and remain so. Cameron was best man at Loehnis’s wedding and Loehnis was one of only a few close friends who were invited to Cameron’s 44th birthday at Chequers in 2010. Also there was Rebekah Brooks.
