When the BBC delivered its verdict on the Hutton Inquiry it was left to John Ware and Panorama. The transcript for Ware’s programme runs to over 12,000 words. It’s a long and serious piece of work, and the original cut runs longer still.

Ware has left the programme. Now it will be half an hour. That’s about 5,000 words. Will shorter be sweeter. Talking to a couple of the programme’s old hands there’s a measure of enthusiasm about the move to prime time, but concern too that Panorama will now inevitably be an upmarket version of Tonight with TM. It would be nice if it went the other way and became self-consciously egg-headed. After all, people who didn’t realize they liked ballroom dancing may equally have failed to realize that their capacity for independent thought.

But until then, dodgy driveway contractors beware! There’s a new kid in town…