So what if the new BBC boss isn't a newsroom veteran? The job requires a politician

The broadcaster's latest director general has inherited one of the nation's most political jobs, whether he knows it or not

- Philip Collins

Matt Brittin was widely rumoured to be interested in going into politics when he left Google - and now he has done so by accident.

The director general of the BBC is not quite the impossible job Tim Davie made it look, but it is a widely misunderstood job. It's not - or ought not to be - a reward for broadcasting excellence. It is, of course, a job running a vast organisation with more than 21,000 employees, but it is not only that. The BBC is a public body, in spirit and by funding mechanism, and the director general is - like it or not one of the nation's most prominent political figures.

Almost all the BBC veterans who opine about the top job suggest that the principal requirement is experience of broadcasting, which Brittin, a former Google executive, conspicuously does not have. But they are all making a category error. The relevant skill is judgment about editorial standards and an active political antenna for where a programme-inspired scandal is about to go, rather than a knowledge about production. The director general gets sacked not when programmes are being put together, but when they fall apart. I encounter exactly this dynamic at home. My wife works for the BBC and my brother-in-law for Channel 4 and they know more about television than I ever will. But I know about politics and, by the time programmes comes to the attention of the director general, it has become a handling issue.