The internet asked the right questions about Phillip Schofield – so why didn’t ITV?

It does not require the greatest amount of hindsight-based wisdom to work out that anyone with the nous to ask the question should probably also have the nous not to believe the answer, writes Tom Peck

Phillip Schofield during his BBC interview (BBC)

Before the Culture and Media Sport select committee could begin two hours of staring down ITV’s big bosses and demanding that they must have known about Phillip Schofield because absolutely everybody knew about Phillip Schofield, they had to go through the formalities and declare if any of them had any conflict of interest to declare.

Four of the select committee had worked at ITV before, one as a news anchor. Practically all of the rest of them had accepted hospitality from the broadcaster over the years. Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the committee, had done neither, but then again did have to say that she is the daughter of HOW! presenter Fred Dinenage, who until 18 months ago had worked there for more than 40 years.

The central question in the Phillip Schofield scandal hasn’t changed, nor moved on so much as a single centimetre, in the weeks if not months that no one has seemed to talk about anything else. And it’s this: “HOW DID THEY NOT KNOW?”