BBC - Time For A Sharp Exit

Last Wednesday, I concluded that the situation of Richard Sharp, awarded his position as chairman of the BBC by disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, was no longer tenable, and that he should resign from the post. The DCMS Committee hearing that prompted my conclusion has now reported its findings. They are not good for Sharp.

Richard Sharp

Sharp, as the Guardian noted after his DCMS appearance, “has revealed he personally informed Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak that he wanted the [BBC] job before he applied, as he underwent a sometimes brutal interrogation from MPs over alleged conflicts of interest”. And when it came to his role in facilitating that £800,000 loan for Bozo, matters got a lot worse.

“Accused by Labour MP Kevin Brennan of a ‘monumental failure of judgment’ in failing to disclose the information, Sharp denied doing so because he assumed the information would simply never come to light”. Which sounds like he thought he would get away with it. And that makes his position yet less tenable. So back came the Guardian last night with a little more.

The headline spells it out. “BBC chairman Richard Sharp ‘breached standards expected’ for job application … The chair’s future at the corporation is in doubt after a damning Commons report on his role in the Boris Johnson loan affair”. Also, “Senior figures within the BBC believe its chairman, Richard Sharp, has seriously undermined the corporation’s impartiality”. Ouch!

Tim Davie

The DCMS Committee then Tweeted out news of its report, with this accompanying comment: “On Tuesday we questioned Richard Sharp about his appointment as Chair of [the BBC] … Mr Sharp's omissions about his role in a loan for the then Prime Minister were significant errors of judgement, which harm trust in the public appointments process”. Oh dear!

It should also be noted that the DCMS Committee is chaired by a Tory MP - Damian Green. It has a Tory majority. Then, this morning, something happened that suggests Sharp may indeed be own his way out - sooner or later. The Beeb actually reported on the story. Worse for Sharp, someone who has been on his case from the start was given a platform by them.

SNP MP John Nicolson was on the Laura Kuenssberg show’s panel, and with one of the other two panellists being the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, anything domestic politics related gave him that bit more room to make his points, which he duly did. His conclusion was that Sharp should go. But others at the Beeb may now be fearful of a domino effect.

Robbie Gibb

Sharp has, over time, given around £400,000 to the Tory party. He has previously been Director of the CPS, another of those Astroturf lobby groups operating in and around Tufton Street, pushing outdated and indeed discredited economics without always being totally transparent about who funds them. Part of the same alphabet soup as the so-called Taxpayers Alliance.

Caught speaking with the TPA’s logo displayed prominently in the background not so long ago was Robbie Gibb, fundamentalist Brexiteer and arch-Tory, who could so easily become a casualty of such a domino effect. So could the Director General Tim Davie, another with strong past links to the Tory party. The Government line is to wait for due process to take its course.

So there may be pressure on Sharp to hold on. But this will only delay the inevitable: he’s toast. The DCMS report all but calls for him to go; Nicolson’s comments this morning on the Kuenssberg show left anyone taking an interest in no doubt of that. And hopefully this will be the moment that the Beeb worm turns on the Tories, thus bringing the General Election nearer.

Time for the chairman to make a sharp exit. Sooner rather than later.

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