Form Book 24

There's no mention in the DG job spec of "your relations' politics", but Michael Crick, now at Channel 4, follows others who have hinted that there ought to be some political balance against the European record of Chairman Lord Patten when considering DG candidates.

So he looks particularly at Caroline Thomson; gives Helen Boaden largely a clean bill of health; reminds us of Ed Richards' part in the Labour project; and suggests that George Entwistle was radical, at least in his editorship of Newsnight. He might also have added that Telegraph readers probably think Lionel Barber at the FT is a Europhile. Some of them also probably think he was at his best on "Give Us A Clue".

There's no record of Michael Jackson's political views.