It is, by common consent, the job from hell, but within days of starting as BBC director general, Tim Davie, achieved the impossible by generating positive headlines in outlets normally critical of the Beeb.
He achieved this simply by reversing a decision not to sing “Rule Britannia” — a patriotic song linked to the United Kingdom’s colonial past — at the famed Last Night of the Proms, the finale to the BBC’s annual summer music festival, and as much a part of the English psyche as Wimbledon and tea drinking. Whether Davie can repeat this deft touch, which overturned an initial decision to skip the lyrics and only play an orchestral rendition, once he gets into his stride is anyone’s guess. But he has hit the ground running.
