"If the BBC still has the courage to take risks it should do so on issues of significance - through journalism, not comedy. With the news industry in crisis, the BBC has a superb opportunity to advance the cause of investigative reporting and the classic fourth estate ideal of holding power to account. The sadness of Mark Thompson's term as DG to date is that it has attempted too little of this. His post-Hutton BBC seems terrified of serious, significant risk. That is among the reasons that it employs fools to boast about who they have slept with in preference to tough, "edgy" journalists. Andrew Gilligan does not insult harmless grandfathers. His targets deserve the attention he gives them."

Tim Luckhurst