By now everyone knows the tale of the taxi-driver invited to a hotel in the days when George Best was enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle. He gazed upon the abundant champagne and the ample form of a couple of Miss Worlds before inquiring ‘Where did it all go wrong, George?’ Where did some, if not by any means all of it, go wrong in the case of John Birt?

In an earlier chapter I have described Birt's inexorable rise to the Director Generalship, his new vision of ‘Producer Choice’, and his recovery from the ‘Armanigate’ embarrassment, culminating in the recruitment of its Chief Executive to the staff of the BBC.

I now turn to the subsequent performance and record of this controversial and ultimately divisive figure, and not least to his relationships with Duke Hussey as Chairman and to colleagues in senior management. It is important to emphasise at the outset that, to begin with, Birt's succession was due in no small measure to Hussey's judgement that he would be the right man to lead the Corporation. He had, indeed, wished Birt to succeed Checkland at once rather than after a compromise extension of Checkland's term. It was also the case that Birt's blind spots did not include a lack of awareness of all his own deficiencies and vulnerabilities. He was a great protagonist of bringing really able people with skills he admitted to be complementary with his own, such as Bob Phillis and Liz Forgan, into the Corporation's senior management.