Johnson and Sharp came under the spotlight after a Sunday Times report that the latter helped the then prime minister find guarantors to secure an £800,000 personal loan
THE BBC chairman Richard Sharpe claimed today that the role he played in approving a loan for Britain’s former prime minister Boris Johnson he was none other than introducing an old friend who wished to help a government official, in late 2020.
Sapper, a former banker at Goldman Sachs, however noted that the public broadcaster’s nominations committee would have to check whether all the regulations governing the BBC had been followed after he was appointed.
Johnson and Sharp came under the spotlight after the Sunday Times reported that the latter helped the then prime minister find guarantors to secure an £800,000 personal loan. Johnson then nominated Sharpe for the position of chairman of the BBC’s board. At the time he made the “recommendations”, Sharp had already submitted his candidacy for the BBC chairmanship and was offered the post in January 2021.
“The BBC has no role in the positioning of the president and any questions are for the government,” a BBC spokesman said today.
Sharp said in a letter to BBC staff that he did not want the case to distract the organization from the challenges it was facing.
“I was not involved in the approval of the loan or the appointment of the guarantor and I did not arrange any financing,” he claimed in his letter. “What I did was introduce (old friend) Sam Blythe to the government official in question,” he added.
Blythe is also a distant cousin of Johnson.
Sharp maintains that he agreed with government officials that he would not pursue the matter further to avoid any potential conflict of interest. He says he was not involved in the loan process and knows nothing more than what has been written in the press about the loan or its guarantor.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said today that the process of appointing Sharpe was rigorous and independent, while Johnson, speaking to Sky News, called what was being written “nonsense”. “Richard Sharpe is a good and clear man but he knows absolutely nothing about my personal finances,” she said.
Sharpe himself said the government confirmed he was appointed on merit and that the recruitment process was followed. For reasons of transparency, the nominations review committee will make public the conclusions of its investigation.
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