“JESUS was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary, it’s them twisting it that ruined it for me” – John Lennon.

I find echoes of Beatle John’s then controversial quote in my feelings towards the British Broadcasting Corporation. A fine idea in principle, but one flawed by the host of indifferent senior executives that have blighted the organisation, especially over the last three decades.

The resignations of DG Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness last Sunday were the culmination of a furtive campaign by Tory/Reform placemen within the corporation to wear down the so-called “leadership” into adopting an increasingly rightward editorial stance.

Bear in mind this comes after the already grotesque over-representation of the Reform Party on BBC channels, the veil drawn over the disaster of Brexit, and the prominence of presenters Fiona Bruce and Laura Kuenssberg in political coverage, all under former Tory council candidate Davie’s milquetoast tenure.

Neither Davie or Turness should be regarded as martyrs, more as simply collateral damage in board member Robbie Gibb’s attempts to cast BBC news and current affairs in the mould of GB News (he formerly advised) and generally “de-wokify” Auntie.

Davie and Turness could have fought back and attempted to mount a defence against those who weaponised against them Panorama’s unforced error in the use of Trump’s insurrectionary speeches on January 6 2021. No sane person who watched the events that day at the Capitol can doubt Trump instigated the attempted overthrow of constitutional government in the US.

But the pair were probably thinking of their future career prospects and the desire nor to be caught in Donald Trump’s verbal crosshairs, so decided to spinelessly bail out. Leaving the largely passive chair Samir Shah (himself hardly a radical socialist) twisting aimlessly in the wind until Gibb and friends determine his role in their vision for the BBC.

Davie can always go back from whence he came and return to the world of fizzy drinks marketing, while Turness can turn her hand to consultancy, speeches and a possible onscreen media career for the likes of Sky News.

It didn’t have to be this way.

As Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair both demonstrated with Alasdair Milne and Greg Dyke/Gavyn Davies respectively, the prime minister can usually exert enough pressure to hasten the exit of a troublesome DG or chair.

In retrospect, with any common sense, Keir Starmer should have cleaned out the Augean stables of the BBC within weeks of winning the general election last July. Davie, Turness, Gibb, John McAndrew (BBC News director of programmes) and accompanying myrmidons all to be handed their P45s, with a new transparent recruitment process for their positions swiftly instituted.

Which would hopefully have given the corporation a director-general with genuine editorial experience, one independent of overt political affiliation (past or present) and crucially with the ability to speak plainly without relying on the dated marketing verbiage and McKinsey-style management bullshit that has been the lingua franca of BBC senior management.

Someone in the mould of former World Service MD and Newsnight presenter John Tusa, for instance. To be frank, not many suitable applicants immediately spring to mind, but an intelligent and independent thinker with the ability to motivate and manage staff.

But, according to The Guardian, the government’s response to the BBC leadership crisis and the malign influence of Gibb has been limp. “That’s for the board to grip. Our hands are tied.”

But in what I realise is probably a vain hope, Starmer has still time to find his backbone and give it a shot; Boris Johnson managed to get away with sticking his oar in at the corporation so the PM could at least try.

I guess.

Of course, if president Biden and his AG Merrick Garland had got off their respective posteriors, the Panorama issue would likely never have arisen. A disgraced Trump would be in prison, exile or electronically tagged enforced retirement, banned by law from ever standing for the presidency again.

Stephen Arnell was employed at the BBC twice in the 1990s/early 2000s and also at ITV.