Rory Stewart

And I was struck by the fact that we were not remotely as prepared.

I testified to the Senate, and that's something.

I testified to the Senate, I think, in 2008.

They are really sharp.

And they have their staffers preparing every question and it's completely legalistic and they're drilling into it.

I felt that we let people off too much.

Often the chair are thinking, well, you have one question.

As soon as you've got them on the rope, it moves on to the next MP.

Some law firms offered training

but actually very few MPs turned up for that training.

I mean, there's a general story around professionalism training of MPs and ministers.

It's such a fascinating thing, isn't it?

So the chair of the BBC, I suppose, came up at the tail end of the last conservative government.

And you can see how different the world is.

Because I was having a few very informal conversations about whether that was something I might be interested in, right?

Chair of the BBC.

Fast forward 14 months, it's kind of unimaginable that a figure like me could be chair of the BBC.

The thing has become so politicized and complicated.

Whereas Chris Patton, of course, was chair of the BBC, right?

He's not a figure, massively different, kind of a centrist Tory.