Steerpike | 4 April 2013

Chat, chat, chat. Every member of the Cabinet enjoys a good old chin-wag with their ministerial driver. Except one. Dave appears to have taken a vow of silence. For three years the PM has stoutly refused to offer a syllable of conversation from the back of his bullet-proof limo. I’m told that a sweepstake has opened up in the car pool and the first government chauffeur to hear the Prime Minister break his oath stands to win about 1,000 smackers. Not for personal gain, of course. If the PM’s elective aphasia ever comes to an end, the winner will donate the cash to a charity helping children with speech difficulties.
 
Has Tony Hall, who took over at the BBC this week, been aided in his starry career by his ability to cultivate political contacts? While in charge of the Royal Opera House he helped a number of senior Tories explore their love of music. Ed Vaizey, Michael Gove and George Osborne were all weclomed at Covent Garden by Lord Hall. But one leading Conservative, Iain Duncan Smith, must be grateful that he never developed a taste for such luxurious entertainments. More than 350,000 members of the public have now signed a petition demanding that IDS make good his claim that he could live on £53 a week. A couple of cheap seats for the ROH’s current production of Die Zauberflöte would set him back £220.
 
One of Lord Hall’s predecessors, Mark Thompson, is toiling away as chief executive of the New York Times. But he’s devised a brilliant wheeze to give his old chums at Broadcasting House a bit of extra work. Later this month his newspaper will co-host a Social Media Summit at the Times Center in New York. Thompson promises an ‘exciting line-up’ including world-class media luminaries like Matthew Eltringham, ‘Head of Website and Events at the BBC Academy College of Journalism’, and Dmitry Shishkin, ‘Digital Development Editor at BBC Global News’.