BBC’s Chairman Announced His Resignation After His Involvement With Boris Johnson

(CTN News) – The BBC chairman resigned on Friday after his role in a loan for the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson threw doubt on the network’s lauded neutrality.

The selection of Richard Sharp, a wealthy former party supporter, was criticised at the time by opposition parties. Britain’s Conservative government has long been accused of attempting to stifle the publicly financed BBC.

The government has the power to choose the BBC chairman.

Sharp’s role as a middleman in arranging Johnson’s £800,000 ($1 million) loan was only afterward revealed

Sharp, who was once Rishi Sunak’s boss at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, denied any wrongdoing but announced his resignation in order to avoid being “a distraction from the Corporation’s good work.”

Sharp’s tight historical ties to the Conservatives, though, had already created a distracting scandal for the administration and the broadcaster.

When the BBC suspended former England player Gary Lineker from their premier football highlights show last month, critics reacted angrily.

Lineker said on Twitter that the Sunak administration was promoting its strict immigration policy with Nazi-era rhetoric.

After other presenters refused to work, the Sharp-led board quickly reinstated Lineker, which caused havoc with the BBC’s sports programming on TV and radio.

Dominic Raab Forced To Resign

As the government started the delicate search for a replacement for one of Britain’s most prominent positions when Sharp leaves at the end of June, Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer congratulated Sharp for his contribution.

Dominic Raab was forced to resign last Friday after a new investigation concluded that he had bullied government servants, therefore Sunak already had to recruit a replacement.

Lineker intervened once more to make the case that the BBC chair should not be selected by the government. “Not now, never,” he tweeted.

The BBC chairman should not be selected by the government of the day. Not now, not ever.

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) April 28, 2023

Sunak told reporters that he would not “prejudge” the hiring process, but he would not rule out another political appointee.

Ed Davey, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, claimed that the Conservatives were “dragging the BBC through the mud.”

Conservative politicians ruin up everything they touch. Before the British local elections on Thursday, he declared, “They are not fit to govern our great country.

“Richard Sharp shouldn’t have been appointed by Boris Johnson in the first place, and to make matters worse, Rishi Sunak failed to act with leadership when he fired him.”

The investigation by a senior lawyer concluded that Sharp “failed to disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest” to a committee of MPs who were reviewing his nomination by Johnson in early 2021.

Lost the dressing room

Lawyer Adam Heppinstall discovered that there was a chance that people would believe Mr. Sharp was nominated for the position because he helped the former prime minister with a personal financial situation.

The same MP committee charged Sharp with “significant errors of judgement” in February for failing to disclose his role in the transaction.

Late in 2020, Sharp put Johnson in touch with a distant cousin of the prime minister who gave him the credit facility while he was being considered for the BBC position.

Sharp announced his retirement soon after Heppinstall sent Sunak’s ministry a copy of his report, however he has denied receiving the job as payment for aiding the cash-strapped Johnson.

He admitted to breaking the UK’s strict regulations on conflicts of interest but claimed it was “inadvertent and not material” to his nomination to the BBC.

However, he stated in a statement, “I have chosen to prioritise the interests of the BBC.

Sharp was bid farewell by Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.

“He had lost the dressing room, he had lost the respect of senior figures in the broadcasting industry, and he had besmirched the reputation of the BBC,” she claimed.