Ding ding! It's Mad Madge taking on Rona the Groaner: QUENTIN LETTS watches the BBC boss under 解雇する／砲火／射撃?

• e-mail

Tricky one for the BBC. For weeks it has been making a palaver about 申し立てられた／疑わしい 税金 fiddles 伴う／関わるing HSBC’s Switzerland 支店. 投票（する） Comrade Miliband! The Beeb gave the 税金 story even greater airtime than its 最近の obsession with those ridiculous TV 審議s.

Yesterday ? oops ? the chairman of the BBC, Rona Fairhead, was in the 苦境に陥る at 議会, （刑事）被告 of 存在 just one of those HSBC rotters who should have done more to stop such low behaviour. Quick, lads, 取り消す the News and run a repeat of The Wombles!

Mrs Fairhead, who is paid £334,000 a year (at a 率 of £10k a day) to be an HSBC 非，不，無-(n)役員／(a)執行力のある director, may have thought she had got away with it. It was three-４半期/4分の1s of an hour before she uttered a word yesterday.

Rona Fairhead 直面するd a call to 辞職する as chairman of the BBC 信用 after 存在 取調べ／厳しく尋問するd about her time as a 非，不，無-(n)役員／(a)執行力のある direct or on HSBC's board

The Public Accounts 委員会 was savaging HSBC 長，指導者 (n)役員／(a)執行力のある Stuart Gulliver and a former boss, Chris Meares. Mrs Fairhead sat at the end of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, dressed in 黒人／ボイコット, her hair 捨てるd 支援する and tied by a funereal hairband. I have seen Eva Peron sung in that sort of 衣装. The BBC 支え（る）s dept. would have been proud of her. And she might 同様に have been invisible, because no one asked her anything.

For those first 45 minutes, Mr Gulliver swallowed a lot of 弾丸s over his personal 税金 手はず／準備 (he had a piffling £7million in a スイスの account in the 指名する of a company 登録（する）d in パナマ by an outfit that does 商売／仕事 with strongmen in Syria and Zimbabwe ? as one does.) Nothing to see, people.

Mr Meares also received six of the best from the 委員会’s erratic (i.e. ますます batty) chairman, Margaret Hodge.?

個人として 豊富な Lady Hodge some time ago 発射 over the 辛勝する／優位 of Niagara 落ちるs in her バーレル／樽, 叫び声をあげるing yabba-dabba-doooo. She has started to believe her own publicity. She now starts shouting at 証言，証人／目撃するs two questions in. She laughs at her own jokes, throws high her 手渡すs まっただ中に a 動揺させる of jewellery and yesterday spat out a disgusted ‘ach!’ when Mrs Fairhead gave her answers.

委員会 chairman Margaret Hodge said Ms Fairhead had lost her 信用, but Tory 委員会 member Stephen Hammond 同意しないd with the call for her to 辞職する

By now, you see, the BBC chairman had been caught in the barbed wire. She is one of the people at HSBC who is supposed to 課す the 政策 systems which would have brought 潔白 to the stinky bogs of 私的な banking. The 委員会, not least Stephen Phillips (反対／詐欺, Sleaford and N Hykeham), felt that she had failed in her 使節団.

Mr Phillips is a 最高の，を越す-spondoolicks barrister whose exterior radiates buttery 信用／信任. I happened to be sitting just behind him and could see that his bitten fingertips (hidden from 見解（をとる）) were trembling and his 権利 foot was （電話線からの）盗聴 a furious （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域. Yet outwardly, he was the essence of smarmy QC.

He had already told Mr Meares ‘we’ll get on so much quicker if you give straight answers’, and now he duffed in Mrs Fairhead. ‘How can you stay in place?’ he 需要・要求するd はっきりと. ‘Surely you will have to go.’ And then, with an impressive 新たな展開 of 怒り／怒る in the 発言する／表明する : ‘Someone has to take 責任／義務 for this.’

Mrs Fairhead produced long paragraphs of prosaic bloviation, 配達するd 非，不，無-stop 経由で a tight upper lip which clipped the vowels and tinged the whole utterance with dreary procedurality. ‘I would say I have been 絶対 unyielding,’ she replied. She meant she had been unyielding に向かって 税金-fiddling bank underlings but she was certainly unyielding to the MPs yesterday. It did not 満足させる Lady Hodge, who bawled, ‘you’re always so ruddy evasive’, and then looked around goofily for 激励 from her 同僚s. Cat fight!

Other MPs started speaking at once: three Tory men, a 労働 Welshman, two 労働 women, while 退役軍人 Austin Mitchell (Lab, Grimsby) succumbed to colicky coughing and two of the three 証言，証人／目撃するs talked 支援する. 大混乱.

Who gives a monkey’s about 審議s between the political-party leaders? Let’s have a one-to-one TV 審議 between hereditary multi-millionaire Madge Hodge and self-made businesswoman Rona the Groaner. It would be a ratings 勝利者.