Not only Tony has his cronies

Of all the gnat's-bite criticisms the Tories make of New Labour, cronyism is the silliest. What this charge amounts to is that Tony Blair appoints people he likes and with whom he feels comfortable.

To which it is possible to say: big deal. Even those of us who find Tony Blair difficult to take can see there isn't much wrong with that. After all, the Tories carried on in the same way for years, only then it was called the 'old boys' network'.

Back-scratching and chum-promoting suited them just fine. An accompanying irony of such criticism is that much of it is relayed by national newspapers.

Nothing unusual in that as such - except that networking is how journalists get along, especially on nationals where jobs are hardly ever advertised, but instead go to people who know people, with new appointments being passed along a daisy-chain of cronyism.

Nothing much wrong with that, either - it's just the way it goes. Television tycoon Greg Dyke is the latest alleged crony, and the revelations that Mr Dyke gave about £50,000 to Labour over five years have threatened his chances of becoming the next director general of the BBC.

Mr Dyke, a York University old boy, has been short-listed for the job, and his candidature has annoyed William Hague.

Mr Hague has written to the BBC board of governors saying that Mr Dyke's support for Tony Blair puts in question his impartiality, and should therefore rule him out as a candidate for the Beeb's top job.

This is a tricky area, and even Mr Dyke himself is reported to have had "serious misgivings" about allowing his name to be put forward.

As is the way with such jobs, he did not apply but was approached - and came under pressure from friends who said he should apply.

Despite the delicate difficulties raised by Mr Dyke's support for Labour, there is no reason on earth why he shouldn't make a perfectly good director general (so long as we are willing to forgive and forget his role as the creator of Roland Rat).

The logical conclusion of vetoing Mr Dyke is that no one with any political leaning at all should be appointed to any important public job, a move which would rule out a lot of able people from all political quarters.

Another angle on this story is that The Times newspaper has long campaigned against Greg Dyke, who is chairman of Pearson Television and a long-time foe of Rupert Murdoch, who, of course, owns The Times. Mr Murdoch has been using his most prestigious newspaper to kick this issue into life for some time now, and William Hague's intervention yesterday made the lead in The Times.

Mr Hague's latest complaints don't really stand up at all.

For if he believes that politics should be kept out of the top BBC job, what right has he, as a politician, to interfere in a selection that is made by the 12 members of the BBC board of governors? None at all, I'd have thought.

As epitaphs go, that spoken by a relative of millionaire Hilda Robinson, who died last year at the age of 94, has a ring: "She didn't do badly. She went to Greece in October, her passport expired in November, and she died in December."

Mrs Robinson was a keen traveller and wealthy philanthropist. In her will this week, she did not leave a penny to her children, despite an estate of £1.4 million.

She was not mean, but believed inherited wealth had brought great unhappiness to her family.

Her decision brings to mind my great uncle, the only wealthy Cole in memory.

Shortly before his death, great uncle Harry changed his will so that most of his estate, considerable in its day, went to charity instead of his family.

No one was really the worse for his decision.

03/06/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.