Back at the BBC, Dyke finds a loyal audience
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Your support makes all the difference.The last time Greg Dyke was photographed at BBC Television Centre he was surrounded by adoring staff after his resignation in February over the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly. Yesterday, he paid his first public visit since that day and found himself surrounded by his former members of staff - still adoring.
The last time Greg Dyke was photographed at BBC Television Centre he was surrounded by adoring staff after his resignation in February over the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly. Yesterday, he paid his first public visit since that day and found himself surrounded by his former members of staff - still adoring.
On what the BBC could have labelled "the Big Greg Dyke Day", the former director general had a book to sell, Inside Story , about his time at the BBC and the background to the Hutton affair. He spent the day popping up all over the corporation like a new logo: on the Today programme and Breakfast News in the morning, Radio Five live in the afternoon and BBC News 24 seemingly all the time. It wasn't the first time he had been back to Television Centre - he was there with a Channel 4 crew for a film broadcast on Sunday night, called Betrayed by New Labour - but it was the first time the staff at large would have been aware of his presence.
The highlight of yesterday's visit was a book signing in the BBC canteen, where Mr Dyke's former colleagues queued to get copies autographed and to shake the hand of their former boss. Although the media were initially invited, some elements of the BBC were clearly slightly discomforted by the idea of a book that criticises the governors, being promoted on corporation premises. But there was certainly no embarrassment on the part of Mr Dyke's former executive colleagues such as Alan Yentob, the director of drama and entertainment, who joined the long queue to get the book, or those, like the director of sport, Peter Salmon, who sent their personal assistants to bag them a copy.
Even Mark Thompson, Mr Dyke's successor as director general, happily posed for a picture with the former incumbent, but only after getting his copy of the book signed.
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