You may not have been watching the same witness ! i thought he came across badly. He had plenty of time to rehearse his answers, and it showed, but he was driven to make some points against himself.
One example was very damaging. He acknowledged that he knew very well what quasi -judicial meant and was taken through instructions on the role, which he had read and inderstood. He was then asked about sending a message saying 'Congratulations!' to the Murdochs. This was timed at 1458. That was, he explained, congratulations on their success with Brussels but , at the tme, he was not in office.
The questioning continued along these lines:
"When were you in office?" Answer "When the PM confirmed my appointment"
And how long after 1458 was that?" "An hour". (!).
Was that congratulations a message you would have sent in office?"" No".
Did you not think you should have disclosed it?" "No."
Here is a man who thnks that his obvious enthusiasm and support for this bid was a) not preventing him from being judicial b) so irrelevant, or so much to be kept secret, that he would not have disclosed, to anyone in authority, that he was congratulating one party on something, before his appointment was confirmed. Why? Since he would not have sent that message one minute after he was confirmed as, apparently, it was not 'quasi judicial' why would he not want it known before his confirmation, unless he feared his appointment would not be confirmed? And why should that worry him (or the Murdochs)?