Some loopy names in the mix to be the BBC's new chief

Who should take over as BBC director-general in the wake of Tim Davie’s resignation? Some of the Corporation’s strongest opponents are throwing a few decidedly loopy names into the mix.

On Talk – Rupert Murdoch’s TV channel which isn’t on TV anymore – international editor Isabel Oakeshott has been advocating for Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor who, despite turning 77 at the end of this week, still haunts the upper corridors of the paper’s offices with a non-job as editor-in-chief of DMG Media.

Dacre is “someone who’s worked for a news organisation that has actually had to, you know, sell newspapers in order to survive, you know”, opined Oakeshott. “Let’s have somebody from the outside that sees it with new eyes rather than a lifer.”

Leaving aside that Oakeshott lives in the United Arab Emirates and thus doesn’t have to pay the licence fee, Dacre would certainly be a curveball choice to lead the BBC into 2026, and not just because of his advanced years.

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Having been Boris Johnson’s choice to chair Ofcom in 2021, he withdrew from the race, with whispers he might not have been the best fit for an organisation at that point preoccupied with overseeing broadband roll-out (Dacre has never used a computer). And then there’s the little matter of his many years of completely unbiased news coverage at the Mail.

Over at the Sun, meanwhile, editor-at-large Harry Cole is certain he knows who the man for the job is… Harry Cole!

Under the headline ‘…and the next BBC D.G. has to be… ME!’, Cole devotes a full page to outlining his ability to run a £5.9 billion-a-year organisation despite having zero experience.

“I feel my qualifications are more than sufficient,” writes Cole, outlining his manifesto of axing TV licence enforcement (not within the DG’s remit), banning taxi travel and closing BBC Arabic. Alas for Cole, he may not be the right man to ensure the Beeb’s viewing figures remain healthy.

Viewing figures for his YouTube show Harry Cole Saves The West remain woeful, with many videos struggling to get beyond three figures in terms of views, and the channel boasting fewer than 7,000 subscribers. The most recent episode ‘Legacy Media is Dead!’, featuring a fawning interview with Isabella De Luca, a right wing US activist pardoned for her role in the January 6 Capitol attack, has at the time of writing been watched 391 times.