Protective

You have to say that Shield must be an appealing name for a BBC spinner in current times. After an uncomfortably long trawl, Tony Hall and James Purnell have opted for John Shield from the Department of Work and Pensions as their Director of Communications. There he's been providing clarity, or not, for Ian Duncan-Smith's welfare reforms.

John has previous BBC experience, working for News for two years from 2008, before being seduced to communicate success for amusingly-named rail and bus provider, Go Ahead. In earlier times he was a press officer in Downing Street, followed by various Whitehall roles.

Julian Payne, who's been minding the BBC shop as interim comms boss, gets an interesting consolation prize - working on the review of how the Trust and Executive might tell each other the whole story in future.