In all the kerfuffle over the gross lack of taste from Ross and Brand, one body has been invisible: the BBC Trust. What exactly is it for? For over a fortnight after the offending broadcast they have apparently not responded. Surely this is not simply a matter to be left to the Director General. It is widely agreed that if the BBC had reacted a lot faster, it would not have escalated into the major row it has now become. So where was the Trust when they were most needed?
It is all very well for the BBC to be promoting ‘edgy’ programmes in pursuit of wider metropolitan youth audiences, but this was predictably bound to raise sensitive questions about where to draw the line between comic send-ups and offensive breaches of taste. Even apart from the risqué role of Jonathan Ross as agent provocateur, the drift towards a more polarised and fragmented society in Britain readily prompted questions about how such developments could be reconciled with the BBC’s key public service broadcasting role. Where was the Trust in all this?
This episode raises again the important issue of the collapse of accountability in Britain today. The frameworks for supervision and holding account those responsible at high level are simply not working. This is not an isolated example. The exiting of top executives with huge pay-offs after dramatic failure, the shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, the repeated loss of vast amounts of sensitive personal data on lap-tops or CDs, the failure to carry out drains repairs at Pirbright which came within an ace of unleashing another disastrous foot and mouth outbreak, the torturing of Iraqi personnel in Basra, the winding up of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into BAE, and the weakness of regulatory action in many spheres most notably in the lead-up to the current financial turmoil – all these recent cases illustrate in a whole variety of different ways the central point that those carrying the real responsibility have not been held to account.
One way to redress this would be for Parliamentary Select Committees to be much more proactive in exercising their prerogative to summon key top decision-makers, where appropriate, to appear before them in open session to explain and defend their policies and position where major public issues have arisen or seem likely to arise. Perhaps a start could be made with the BBC Trust and its chairman.

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