Broadcasting House

Maybe the can has been kicked down the road.

In fact, you might be able to hear me on Broadcasting House on Radio 4 on Sunday kicking a can down a road with Paddy O'Connell, if that's the sort of thing that you like.

And obviously you can catch me on Newsnight at 7 o'clock on Fridays too, if you haven't had enough of me on the podcast or on the radio.

Anyway, it's been a cracking week, but we've got a really

We broadcast...

I'm sat in Broadcasting House in the centre of London.

When I walk out of here, I get to Oxford Street, one of the world's most famous shopping areas.

And it went traffic-free this week with the pedestrianisation of almost a kilometre of Oxford Street in London.

When you look at the history of Picasso and his children and the, you know, the suicides of his daughters, when you look at, I think actually just popped up in the news there today, Eric Gill, the sculptor and painter who did, I'm not sure if you know much about him, but he was a prolific paedophile, kept diaries, detailing accounts of abusing his children and his pets.

But the BBC Broadcasting House is covered in sculptures made by him.

One of the most prolific fonts used in the world, Gil Sands, was designed by him.

And these things, I know it's really, it's mad.

The BBC has a code of conduct and a set of values.

People wear the values on their lanyards, on their passes that they're supposed to wear all the time when they're walking around Broadcasting House or any other BBC building they might work at anywhere else in the country.

And we're supposed to respect each other.

And we were also told we should bring our authentic selves to work.

And also we're keeping a close eye on what's happening in France and the big protests there.

What about you on Broadcasting House?

Yes, there have been more than 130 arrests when I came into the newscast studio already.

That's a large number.

So they're reassured by that.

Then there must have been a complaint about Savile and young kids in terms of his flat around the corner from Broadcasting House and his troubles with his mobile home around the country for a series called Savile's Troubles.

And they actually call him in.

He's called into a meeting and confronted.

Mm-hmm.

But they knew the allegations were a very very high level the worst sort of child abuse images.

Yeah So and they've had many complaints about him before that anyhow, so plainly that case shows up I mean, I think the symbolic thing for me is That above the doors of old broadcasting house, you know the big sort of art deco.

Yeah There

And you mentioned Brexit, and this was a very interesting, if I could speak from my own experience as a Church of England parson, I was that classic thing, a Guardian reading vicar in a Daily Mail reading parish.

And what was interesting about that was when Brexit was up for debate and everything, I thought, well, that's not going to happen, partly because a chunk of my life I spent in Broadcasting House.

So I absorbed the culture of Broadcasting House and I shared broadly the opinions of the sort of people who work in Broadcasting House.

I also made a couple of phone calls the night before the vote to a friend who works in private equity where they have powerful private polling.

And I said, what's it going to be? And they said, it's going to be fine.