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Richard Sharp has said there was “no conflict of interest” over his role in helping Boris Johnson secure a loan before being appointed BBC chairman.

He said he is confident he was given the job “on merit” after an investigation was launched into his hiring.

The BBC is also reporting that Mr Sharp has no plans to stand down despite scrutiny of his appointment.

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The former banker has confirmed he introduced his close friend Sam Blyth to cabinet secretary Simon Case in late 2020, to discuss whether Mr Blyth could act as a guarantor for a loan facility for Mr Johnson.

The talks took place while Mr Johnson was still prime minister, and while Mr Sharp was in the process of applying to be BBC chair.

In an interview with the broadcaster today, Mr Sharp said that a decision was made by Mr Case that there was no conflict of interest, nor the perception of one.

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He said: “Having had a discussion with the cabinet secretary about avoiding a conflict – and the perception of conflict – I felt comfortable and I still feel there was no conflict because at that stage what I was seeking to do was to ensure the process was followed exactly by the book, and that the process hadn’t started, of any kind, in terms of any support that Sam [Blyth] was going to provide to the prime minister.”

Mr Blyth is a multimillionaire Canadian businessman and distant relative of Mr Johnson.

The Sunday Times reported he ended up being a guarantor of a loan of £800,000 to the former PM, who oversaw Mr Sharp’s appointment.

Timeline

November 2020:
According to the Sunday Times the loan guarantee was first suggested by Canadian millionaire Sam Blyth during a dinner with Richard Sharp.

Early December 2020:
In early December, Richard Sharp put Sam Blyth in contact with the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case.

Late 2020:
Before the end of the year, Richard Sharp and Sam Blyth met with Boris Johnson for dinner at his country residence, Chequers. They insist the prime minister’s finances were not discussed.

January 2021:
At the start of January, the government announced Richard Sharp as the preferred candidate to be BBC chairman.

Asked if he thought he had misled a parliamentary committee or the advisory panel which picked him, Mr Sharp said: “No, I don’t.”

He added: “I had clarified and agreed with the cabinet secretary, both of us had the judgment that I’d avoided a conflict or a perception of conflict.”

Pressed on whether the row was an issue at a time when the BBC is making efforts to be impartial and highlight transparency, Mr Sharp told his own news channel: “Well look I see attacks on the BBC all the time, from the media, and for example social media, and they attack our impartiality.

“And I think the governance we put in place is extremely strong on impartiality and I’ll be talking about it later today, precisely because we should be judged by our output. “

The BBC is reviewing any conflict of interests related to Mr Sharp’s role while William Shawcross, the Commissioner for Public Appointments, has opened an investigation into the competition which led to his appointment.

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Johnson says Richard Sharp ‘knows nothing’ about his finances

Labour has also reported Mr Johnson to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, saying the former prime minister’s financial affairs are “dragging the Conservative Party deeper into yet another quagmire of sleaze”.

On Monday, Mr Johnson told Sky News that Mr Sharp “knows absolutely nothing about my personal finances – I can tell you that for 100% ding-dang sure”.

Rishi Sunak, who is under pressure over Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs, has sought to distance himself from the controversy, saying saying Mr Sharp’s appointment was made by “one of my predecessors”.

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Weather latest: Strong winds batter UK as millions set to hit roads over Easter weekend

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Weather latest: Strong winds batter UK as millions set to hit roads over Easter weekend

Winds of up to 70mph have battered the south coast, along with hail and thunder, as millions are set to hit the roads for Easter getaways.

The weekend is set to be “unsettled” but “bright and breezy”, according to the Met Office forecast.

Drivers are being warned of long delays on roads as more than 14 million Easter getaway trips are expected.

Find out the forecast for where you live

A ferry arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent during rough seas. Pic: PA
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A ferry arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent during rough seas. Pic: PA

The RAC and transport analysis company Inrix commissioned a survey which suggested 2.6 million leisure journeys by car will be made on Good Friday.

Meanwhile, at least three major airports have said that the coming days will be their busiest-ever Easter weekend while 493 different pieces of planned engineering works are set to take place on the railways.

Yellow weather warnings for rain and strong winds were issued across parts of the south of England and Northern Ireland respectively on Thursday.

The caution for the south of England expired at 11.59pm on Thursday while the warning for Northern Ireland said “a few” homes and businesses could be flooded and is in place until 3am on Friday.

The unsettled conditions are expected to continue into Easter, as the bank holiday weekend leads into a two-week break for many schools.

Pic: Met Office
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Pic: Met Office

Traffic in Dover as Easter weekend begins. Pic: PA
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Traffic in Dover. Pic: PA

Sky News weather producer Joanna Robinson said Good Friday will be less windy than Thursday, with a few showers around on Saturday and Easter Sunday, along with pleasant sunny spells.

Temperatures of up to 15C (59F) are expected in west London and 14C (57.2F) in Manchester on Sunday, which is typical for the time of year.

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Rain is then set to return to the south on Easter Monday.

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Astrocomb breakthrough could help discover Earth-like planets

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Astrocomb breakthrough could help discover Earth-like planets

New Earth-like planets could soon be discovered after scientists made a technological breakthrough.

Physicists have developed an astrocomb that can analyse the blue-green light emitted by stars.

Astrocombs can detect tiny variations in a star’s light created by orbiting exoplanets (those beyond our own solar system) – potentially revealing one similar to Earth.

They have been mainly limited to the green-red part of the light spectrum, but the new system offers the chance to uncover even more space secrets.

The breakthrough was made by physicists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Cambridge University.

“This is a really exciting development that will enable us to study smaller planets on longer orbits than ever before – with the aim of discovering the first ‘Earth-like’ planet orbiting around a nearby sun-like star,” said Dr Samantha Thompson from Cambridge.

Heriot-Watt Professor Derryck Reid said the shorter wavelength light the new system can examine is “rich in the atomic absorption features of interest to astronomers”.

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“Our new approach for the first time provides a continuous sequence of optical markers from the ultraviolet to the blue-green that serve as a precision wavelength scale in this part of the spectrum,” added Professor Reid.

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The technology is being developed for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

It will have a 39-metre primary mirror and be the largest visible and infrared light telescope in the world.

The UK team will also work on astrocombs for telescopes in South Africa and the Canary Islands.

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Horizon scandal: More than £1m claimed as Post Office ‘profit’ may have come from sub-postmasters

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Horizon scandal: More than £1m claimed as Post Office 'profit' may have come from sub-postmasters

More than £1m of unexplained transactions were transferred in to Post Office profit at the height of the Horizon scandal, leaked documents have shown.

The papers, seen by Sky News, show a snapshot of transfers from a Post Office “miscellaneous client” suspense account over a four-year period, up to 2014.

A suspense account is where unexplained, or disputed, transactions remain until they are able to be “reconciled”.

Unaccounted-for transactions were transferred out of the Post Office suspense account and into their profit and loss account after three years.

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Ian Henderson, director of Second Sight – the forensic accountants hired years ago by Post Office – said: “The Post Office was not printing money. It was accumulating funds in its suspense account.

“Those funds belong to somebody, either to third-party clients or to sub-postmasters, and part of the work we were doing in 2015 was drilling into that.”

Mr Henderson said they were sacked not long after asking questions about whether the Post Office profited from shortfalls paid for by sub-postmasters.

Image:
Mr Henderson told Sky News that the money could potentially have come from sub-postmasters’ pockets

More than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted due to faults with Horizon accounting software.

A letter from Alisdair Cameron, the Post Office’s chief financial officer, to Second Sight in February 2015 states some “postings cannot be traced” to “underlying transactions”.

He added: “We are not always able to drill back from the combined totals to itemise all the underlying transactions.”

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‘Compensation paid by summer’

Mr Henderson said the letter shows that “the Post Office was benefiting from this uncertainty due to, frankly, bad record keeping, but taking it to the benefit of their profit and loss account”.

He maintains that it’s impossible to prove for sure that sub-postmasters’ money went into Post Office profit because of a “lack of granularity”.

He says therefore that it is of “sufficient public interest” that a further independent review into the use of suspense accounts should happen.

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Post Office redress delay overshadowed by executive drama

Mr Henderson added: “It didn’t come from thin air, where did the money come from? That’s a fundamental question the Post Office has not answered.”

Meanwhile, separately, a secret recording obtained by Sky News indicates that the Post Office was trying to gag the independent forensic accountants.

The recording is of a meeting in January 2014 between Second Sight, a lawyer and a Post Office representative.

It took place over a year before the accountants were sacked.

In the conference call, there are signs the relationship between the Post Office and Second Sight was beginning to weaken.

There is discussion about a contractual confidentiality agreement, a “letter of engagement” between the parties.

In the recording, Ian Henderson says: “Either, you know, we have unfettered discretion and authorisation to just talk to MPs or we haven’t.

“At the moment, the way the document is drafted, we are prevented from doing that. That’s the issue.”

His colleague at Second Sight, Ron Warmington is heard agreeing.

In another part of the recording, there are more concerns raised that the investigators are being blocked from talking to MPs.

Mr Henderson says: “My point is we should not be gagging either the applicant or Second Sight in being able to respond, you know, fully and frankly to MPs who frankly sort of set this whole process in motion.”

The Post Office representative replies, saying they’re not trying to gag anybody.

Mr Henderson describes “a point of principle”: “In exactly the same way that when we were doing spot reviews, we disclosed to MPs, when they asked us a specific question, the information provided to us by Fujitsu and by Post Office.

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“And that’s why it’s so important to establish this principle that there should be no gagging of Second Sight in relation to being able to discuss our investigative work with MPs.”

In the same meeting, his colleague Ron Warmington said that if it later emerges that Second Sight have been “effectively gagged” in its dealing with MPs, “it’s not going to be Second Sight they are particularly annoyed with, it’s going to be Post Office”.

The representative responds directly with: “I think that’s something that the Post Office will have to deal with if – if it arises.”

Adding that “some of the terminology in terms of gagging is probably an exaggeration of what it is that is trying to be done here, and at the moment you haven’t signed anything.”

The Post Office released a statement in response to the findings, saying: “The statutory public inquiry, chaired by a judge with the power to question witnesses under oath, is the best forum to examine the issues raised by this evidence.

“We continue to remain fully focused on supporting the inquiry to get to the truth of what happened and accountability for that.”

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