Richard Sharp ‘unsuitable’ for chair, says former BBC boss

theguardian.com:

Former BBC director general John Birt has said chairman Richard Sharp’s appointment should not stand as he was an “unsuitable candidate” in a “fatally flawed” process.

Lord Birt said the “cosiness” of the £800,000 loan that Sharp facilitated for Boris Johnson makes him unsuitable for the role, despite the BBC chairman denying wrongdoing.

Birt, who was director general from 1992 to 2000, told MPs on the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee: “I don’t think his appointment should stand. He’s a person of obvious weight and consequence, but in one vital respect he was an unsuitable candidate, and the appointment process itself was fatally flawed.

“The unsuitability came from the very process of navigating a loan for the prime minister at exactly the same time as applying for the job at the BBC. It’s the cosiness of that arrangement that made it unsuitable, and I wish the cabinet secretary had called it out.”

Sharp, who is a former Conservative donor, helped his friend Sam Blyth, a distant cousin of Johnson, act as guarantor on the loan after learning of the then prime minister’s financial troubles.

Birt also criticised the former cabinet secretary, Simon Case, for failing to dissuade Sharp from making an application to be BBC chairman after learning of his role in the loan, on the grounds that this “disqualified” him.

But he said it would be premature to call for Sharp to resign ahead of the publication of a King’s Counsel-led review, while noting that it had “taken quite a long time”.

Birt was also asked for his view on Gary Lineker’s tweets criticising government policy, which he said breached the BBC’s “extremely clear” social media guidelines, adding that it was “a serious matter”, which risked