BBC Chairman Richard Sharp is to appear before the DCMS Select Committee in early February to answer questions about the Sunday Times report on him and Boris.
Guido reckons that last week the Sunday Times got over excited about a shadowy conspiracy, based around a shady dinner at Chequers, which they reported was held before Richard Sharp was appointed chairman of the BBC. The strong implication of the piece (and it was written with only the implication rather than any proof) was that there must have been a quid pro quo. Unfortunately for them Richard Sharp has now checked his diary – the dinner was in May 2021, after he had been made BBC chairman – months after the appointment process was completed in February 2021. Pogrund is a good reporter, this error is a rare slip up which has set a hare running… into a brick wall.
Sharp confirms he dined with Johnson and Blyth at Chequers. However, he says it was May 21 — after the loan was finalised in Feb 21.
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) January 24, 2023
We initially said it was before, after one party confirmed this & the other refused to comment.
Happy to make his post-publication position clear https://t.co/g8jbwBdtyt
Since Sharp is always framed in the media as a Tory supporter, Guido suggests that the Committee ask him if he has made donations to any other political parties (he has), whether he supported any Labour candidates financially, for example if he gave money to Gerard Coyne’s campaign to become the Unite General Secretary. The DCMS Select Committee could be revelatory in unanticipated ways…
Boris speaking to Sky about the Sunday Times Richard Sharp story:
“This is a load of complete nonsense, absolute nonsense. Let me just tell you, Richard Sharp is a good and man but he knows absolutely nothing about my personal finances – I can tell you that for 100% ding dang sure. This is just another example of the BBC disappearing up its own fundament.”
The Last Night of the Proms was already a pretty fraught affair, with one attendee received verbal abuse for turning down an EU beret. Flag wars raged of another sort high above the standing audience however, as a group of patriotic Tory MPs – including a couple of ministers – turned up to find themselves awkwardly sitting next to a box full of metropolitan BBC executives. They were “not very happy about it”…
Among the group were Richard Sharp and Fran Unsworth, who – despite avoiding another row about banning Rule, Britannia! – were sat with faces like they’d “licked p*ss off a nettle”. At one point a Tory MP thought they’d try lightening their mood by throwing a Union Jack flag into the neighbouring BBC box. Unsworth apparently recoiled from it, though Sharp did reluctantly pick it up. Presumably the MPs’ after party at a Secretary of State’s flat was a less awkward affair…
Guido’s disappointment at Charles Moore dropping out of the running to be new BBC Chairman has been dampened today by the news it has not, after all, gone to a raging lefty. Richard Sharp, who has today been revealed as the new Chairman, was an advisor to Boris as was Mayor of London, and to Rishi Sunak on the UK’s economic response to COVID-19. He was a member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee from 2013 until 2019. Before dabbling in advising, Sharp was a banker at JP Morgan and then Goldman Sachs, where he was Rishi Sunak’s boss…
He has donated to the Tories in the past, although perhaps more importantly, since 2002, Sharp has been on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies. Interestingly, Sharp’s late father Lord Eric Sharp was appointed by Keith Joseph in 1980 to oversee the privatisation of Cable & Wireless. Lord Sharp also headed a Centre for Policy Studies Working Group and wrote for the Institute of Economic Affairs.
While people on the right are happy with the appointment, Alastair Campbell was less than happy, saying “Ex Goldman Sachs boss of, and lately assistant to, Sunak. The anti public service contingent really are getting all their people in on the inside now. Trump and Orban watch on in admiration”. Bad Al has some cheek, his days in Downing Street saw Quangos packed with Blairite cronies. Mark Reckless reminded him that Tony Blair appointed Gavyn Davies of Goldman Sachs as BBC Chairman from 2001 until 2004…
