The Conservative MP also clashed with another committee member, Paul Farrelly, at a coffee kiosk in Parliament

Harry Redknapp's Tottenham mirror their creator: impromptu, entertaining and sometimes too open for their own good. Fortunately for Chelsea fans at Wembley tomorrow, and watching neutrals, their team does not reflect its current steward.

Mark Thompson today wrote to BBC staff to tell them of his decision to stand down as Director General of the BBC in the autumn “once the Olympics and the rest of the amazing summer of 2012 are over”.

Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has criticised the BBC's decision to sell Television Centre and move some staff to central London during a period of budget cuts.

IMHO: This week the nation's favourite broadcaster, ironically nicknamed Auntie, took a deep breath, rolled up its shirtsleeves and had a go at tackling "women's issues"

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People go to great lengths to avoid Michael Crick. During an election campaign, the former Tory leader Michael Howard hid in a heliport after the irreverent and bespectacled reporter turned up in the BBC chopper in hot pursuit. He is an unofficial biographer and untiring nemesis of Jeffery Archer, who tried to lock him out of a press event at Conservative Central Office before hissing: "You wait til I'm mayor, you'll find out how tough I am."

There was a time when I looked forward to BBC2's Newsnight. I felt sparks might fly, particularly if Jeremy Paxman were in charge. Along with Radio Four's Today programme, it provided by far the most informative political forum in broadcasting, though in the heyday of New Labour's virtual one-party state it was a bit too much part of the project for my tastes.

Starkey’s arrogance was his undoing. He began to bluster, and the more he blustered, the more ruthless his baby adversary became

If there are many difficult lessons to be learned from recent events here's one that even the most obtuse can quickly master: stick to what you know. Much attention has been focused on David Starkey's Newsnight self-immolation, and rightly so. If you go sampling the words of Enoch Powell, as The Beatles so nearly had it, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

Historian now claims he was talking about the culture of black gangs not race. He blamed black people for causing white anti-social behaviour

David Starkey's TV career in the balance after he says Enoch Powell was right and that 'whites' have become 'black'

The disorder of recent days has provoked a torrent of pontificating from the nation's opinion formers. Here is a sample from across the political spectrum

Too many black men have been killed by the police. This is not the cause of these riots, but it's in the mix