Zahawi Out - BBC Tory Clearout Next

In the end, Rishi Sunak was left with no choice: the investigation into now former Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi showed that he had breached the Ministerial Code on seven occasions. So Zahawi was sacked, to the relief of all those who wished it had happened rather earlier. And, characteristically, our free and fearless press was nowhere to be seen before the event.

Richard Sharp - now in the firing line

Papers like the Mail titles, with their ranks of obscenely overpaid opinion writers telling the public what to think, are so heavily invested in keeping the Tories in power that they failed to allocate the little they still spend on proper investigative journalism to exposing wrongdoing. In the end, it was tax lawyer Dan Neidle who braved Zahawi’s legal threats and broke the scandal.

Sadly for The Blue Team, though, the parallels with John Major’s miserable run of sleaze stories in the mid-1990s continues: as Zahawi fades from view, back into the news comes disgraced formerly alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, and an £800,000 loan. This involved the presence of one Richard Sharp, who is now Chairman of the BBC.

He was appointed to his role at the Beeb by Bozo himself. And as if the concept of gifting your fixer such a job sets ethical alarm bells ringing, they should be clanging off the wall at what is now being revealed - not merely about what Sharp and Bozo said in their defence, but more pertinently how those explanations have unravelled with giddying speed.

It was the Times and Sunday Times - showing that Bozo is no longer a favourite of the Murdoch Mafiosi - that have been pursuing the story, as LBC host Sangita Myska observed: “According to [the Times], Cabinet Secretary Simon Case ‘appears to have been involved in facilitating and clearing the £800,000 (from Sam Blythe to Boris Johnson) then deciding it could be kept secret’. Simon Case is the most senior civil servant in Government”.

So Case is another who may find himself thrown under the bus very soon. He was also the author of a letter to Johnson telling “Given the imminent announcement of Richard Sharp as the new BBC Chairman it is important that you no longer ask his advice about your personal financial matters”.

There was only one problem with that urging: Bozo had already told, via his spokesman, that “This is rubbish. Richard Sharp has never given any financial advice to Boris Johnson, nor has Mr Johnson sought any financial advice from him. There has never been any remuneration or compensation to Mr Sharp from Boris Johnson for this or any other service”.

Robbie Gibb demonstrates his impartiality

Then came the British Council job. As Gabriel Pogrund of the ST notes, “Unknown to Case, in Nov 2020, Blyth was on Foreign Office list of four recommended candidates for CEO of the British Council … Blyth was top. No one will say why. Govt will not comment on leaks. Blyth says he believes civil service put him there”. Is this a Quid Pro Quo? Because it sure looks like one.

But it is Sharp who looks the most likely to find those journalists who have not yet been hobbled sniffing around his part in the continuing sleaze exposure. Pogrund again: “Sharp went to see Simon Case on 4 December, a week before his final BBC interview. Nobody else attended and - contrary to initial suggestions - official position is now that no minutes were taken”. Ho yus.

Where might they sniff? “Johnson and Sharp continue to say Sharp never provided any financial advice [looks very shaky indeed right now] … Sharp says he had no involvement in the loan by 22 Dec, when PET letter was sent … Ex-PM says he had no knowledge of British Council application”. Bozo is known for his propensity to talk well, but lie badly. What of Sharp?

If he has been economical with the actualité, he has to either resign from his BBC role, or be caused to resign. And then the rest of the Tory infiltration and wrecking of a formerly trusted public service broadcaster has to follow him out the door. The prognosis for Sharp is not good: he has already contradicted himself on whether he interfered in the Corporation’s news coverage.

Who might be in pole position to follow him out? Step forward “rabid Brexiteer” Robbie Gibb, who has probably damaged the Beeb’s credibility more than any one individual. The EU referendum coverage was lame in the extreme, with Vote Leave allowed to lie blatantly and constantly, and not get called out for it, in the name of trying to “both sides” the debate.

Because whatever your view of Kier Starmer, a Labour General Election victory would bring, with the certainty of night following day, a clear out of the Tory infiltration from the BBC, along with banishment of the Tufton Street propagandists from the Corporation’s news coverage. By then, Sharp would most likely be long gone, and if Gibb was still there, he soon wouldn’t be.

The great unravelling of Tory influence has begun. The sleaze and corruption will probably soon sink the Tories. Not even the press can stop it this time.

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