Focusing minds - and questions
Amidst all the pyrotechnics at Tuesday's hearing of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee with the BBC Director General, George Entwistle, one point went mostly unremarked: how much more focused and co-ordinated the committee was in its questioning, especially compared to the sessions with Rupert and James Murdoch in the hacking inquiry.
And the reason?
One MP points to the departure of the two superstar figures from those sessions, Labour's Tom Watson, and the Conservative, Louise Mensch. Both had very distinct ideas about the hacking scandal, and took the questioning in their own directions. Whereas, on the inquiry into the Jimmy Savile affair, the committee now seems much more of one mind.
Be that as it may, I gather that there will not be any immediate follow-up sessions. Mr Entwistle, remember, volunteered for his grilling.
Instead, the Committee will wait for the outcome of the two inquiries into the Savile affair, commissioned by the BBC, and then decide what to do.
But watch out for 27 November, when the chair of the BBC Trustees, Lord Patten, and Mr Entwistle were due to go before the committee for a long-scheduled general Q&A session about the corporation and all its works. I imagine the Savile issue will come up then.