EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: BBC Trust chairman must be embarrassed by allegations HSBC helped wealthy clients 'cheat' HMRC out of millions

By Ephraim Hardcastle for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:01 EST, 9 February 2015 | Updated: 19:14 EST, 9 February 2015

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BBC Trust chairman Rona Fairhead must be a trifle embarrassed by allegations that HSBC helped wealthy clients 'cheat' HMRC out of millions.

It's the second time since her appointment last autumn that HSBC has been in trouble. Last time it was a multi-million-pound fine for rigging foreign exchange markets.

Both stories figured in BBC news bulletins. As a director and shareholder of the bank – of any bank, nowadays – is the able Ms Fairhead a wise choice as part-time, £110,000 chair of the BBC Trust?

As a director and shareholder of HSBC is the able Ms Fairhead a wise choice as part-time, £110,000 chair of the BBC Trust?

Today the British Chambers of Commerce convene in London. A 'panel discussion' about devolution features William Hague, Scots Nat MSP John Swinney and Labour backbencher Graham Allen. Coffee is offered. My source warns: 'Narcolepsy alert! Double espressos all round.'

Author Robert Lacey, 71, told Radio 4's Mishal Husain she was being 'patronising' by saying Saudi Arabia had 'no rule of law as we understand it' while discussing the '1,000 lashes' victim, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

Who's right? UK-born Ms Husain, 41, lived in Saudi Arabia as a child, returning aged 12. Lacey's books about the Saudis, The Kingdom (1981) and Inside The Kingdom (2009) were best-sellers. But Mishal is prettier, don't you agree?

Appearing on ITV's This Morning, father-of-two Ed Miliband stressed his family-man credentials, insisting: 'I don't want [my kids] to think of me as a dad who wasn't around... my most important job is being a good dad.'

However, critics point out Ed was in no hurry to marry – or register himself as father of his children – until he became Labour leader. It didn't prevent him being a splendid father, I'm sure.

Dublin-born Sir Michael Gambon, 74, recalls his Irish parents coming to see him perform for the first time, a melancholy memory. 'They stood at the stage door at the end and could barely speak,' he tells Radio Times.

His father, Edward, an engineer, and seamstress mother Mary 'were just staring at me because it was something to them that was completely another world. I'd left home with a strong Dublin accent and then they saw me on stage and my voice had changed, my attitude to life had changed and my outlook had changed. I was quite upright and quite posh and it overwhelmed them.' Sir Michael's is a showbiz biography I would read.

Top of the album charts again with Shadows In The Night, Bob Dylan, 73, is 'a nasty little b****r', says Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, 71, who tells rock magazine NME: 'I remember him saying to me, 'I could have written Satisfaction, Keith – but you couldn't have written Desolation Row'.'

Proving he's nicer than Dylan, Richards commends the latter's 1966 release, Blonde On Blonde, as an album everyone should hear before they die.