Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Public-funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which claims to be an unbiased news disseminator, on Friday suffered a serious jolt to its self-righteousness and reputation when its own Chairman, Richard Sharp, announced resignation for his alleged involvement in a loan to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a former journalist.
This hanky-panky raised questions about the broadcaster’s vaunted impartiality, the media reported.
Britain’s Conservative government has long been accused of seeking to muzzle the ‘reckless’ BBC. Even the appointment of Sharp, who is a wealthy past donor to the party, was denounced by opposition parties.
He had allegedly acted as a go-between to facilitate the £800,000 (USD 1 million) loan for Johnson, a former journalist, and was gifted the BBC Chairmanship as a quid pro quo.
Sharp, an ex-boss of Johnson’s successor Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at investment bank Goldman Sachs, denied any wrongdoing but said he was stepping down to avoid becoming “a distraction from the Corporation’s good work.”
Sunak, three of whose controversial ministers have quit since he took office in October 2022, is contending with a replacement for Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab who was forced out last Friday after another inquiry found him guilty of bullying civil servants.
Opposition Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said the BBC was being “dragged through the mud” by the Conservatives.
“Everything Conservative politicians touch turns into a mess. They are not fit to govern our great country,” he said, ahead of British local elections next Thursday.
“Boris Johnson should never have been allowed to appoint Richard Sharp in the first place, and what’s worse is Rishi Sunak didn’t show leadership by sacking him.”
Sharp “failed to disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest” to a committee of Members of Parliament who were vetting his appointment by Johnson in February 2021, the inquiry by a senior lawyer found.
“There is a risk of a perception that Mr. Sharp was recommended for an appointment because he assisted… the former prime minister in a private financial matter,” lawyer Adam Heppinstall found.
In February 2023, the same committee of MPs accused Sharp of “significant errors of judgment” for not disclosing his involvement in the loan.
While he was being considered for the BBC’s top job, Sharp in late 2020 put Johnson in contact with a distant cousin of the PM who extended him the credit facility.
Sharp denied he got the BBC job as a quid pro quo for helping out the cash-strapped Johnson, but announced his resignation hard on the heels of Heppinstall presenting his report to Sunak’s government.
He acknowledged breaching conflict-of-interest rules for top UK officials but said it was “inadvertent and not material” to his appointment to the BBC.
“Nevertheless, I have decided that it is right to prioritize the interests of the BBC,” he said in a statement.
Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, bade Sharp good riddance.
“He had lost the dressing room, he had lost the respect of senior figures in the broadcasting industry and besmirched the reputation of the BBC,” she said.