Richard Sharp: BBC chair’s position ‘increasingly untenable’ after helping Boris Johnson secure £800,000 loan, says Labour’s Lisa Nandy
The BBC chairman’s position is becoming “increasingly untenable” after a committee of MPs found he made “significant errors of judgement” by facilitating a loan guarantee for Boris Johnson, a frontbench Labour MP has said.
Lisa Nandy made the remarks on Sky News after it emerged Richard Sharp, who helped Mr Johnson secure an £800,000 loan, failed to declare his role as a go-between for the then-prime minister when applying for the chairman’s job.
The cross-party Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has said in a report that Mr Sharp should “consider the impact his omissions will have” on public trust in the broadcaster.
BBC chairman Richard Sharp is under pressure
The committee also said his actions “constitute a breach of the standards expected of individuals” applying for prominent public appointments.
The same committee backed Mr Sharp’s appointment to the chairman’s job in January 2021 but was not aware of his role in facilitating the loan.
Committee report is a ‘really serious development’
Ms Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that the government had “relied on the defence” that the committee had approved the appointment of Mr Sharp as BBC chair.
She continued: “But the committee today is saying that actually, had they known about (the loan), it would have been a very different situation.
“This information was not disclosed to them prior to approving that appointment.”
Speaking about the findings in the report, Ms Nandy said: “It is a really serious development and it makes Richard Sharp’s position look increasingly untenable.”
She added: “I think it’s difficult to see how Richard Sharp could possibly stay in the position that he’s in, given the far reaching implications for the reputation of the BBC and the implications for trust in journalism.”
Mr Sharp appearing before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Ms Nandy’s comments came after the Conservative Party’s development minister Andrew Mitchell said the report’s findings are a “matter for the BBC”.
“I think Damian Green (acting chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee) is a very senior member of the House of Commons and what he and his committee says matters,” he said.
“But I think, as I say, this is really something which the public appointments commissioner must look at and we must wait for his judgement. And above all, of course, it’s a matter for the judgement of the BBC.”
Sharp claims he ‘acted in good faith’
Mr Sharp has said he didn’t arrange the loan but admitted introducing his friend Sam Blyth, a cousin of Mr Johnson who wanted to help the then-PM, to the Cabinet Office.
A spokesperson for Mr Sharp said he “regrets” not telling MPs about his association with Mr Blyth “and apologises”.
“It was in seeking at the time to ensure that the rules were followed, and in the belief that this had been achieved, that Mr Sharp acted in good faith in the way he did,” the spokesperson said.
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It’s hard to see how Sharp survives this sleazy aftershock of Johnson’s time in office
Of the three investigations launched into Richard Sharp’s appointment, this was always the one least likely to prove fatal for his position as BBC chair.
That’s simply because the other inquiries are being run by Whitehall’s official regulator for appointments and the BBC itself.
If the findings from either of those two are anywhere near as critical as this committee report, it’s hard to see how Mr Sharp survives in post.
That’s because the BBC chair really needs to carry the confidence of the government and the corporation to execute the role.
It’s a wholly unwelcome development for BBC employees who have felt increasingly under siege in recent years from a mix of budget cuts, mass redundancies and accusations of political bias.
Given Richard Sharp himself has said the BBC has a “liberal bias”, the fact he has dragged the corporation into this row is particularly grating for many.
But despite this being another example of a somewhat sleazy aftershock of Boris Johnson’s time in office, it’s an unideal situation for Rishi Sunak too.
The prime minister used to work for Richard Sharp at Goldman Sachs, adding to the sense this is all a symptom of a cosy and monied establishment looking after itself.
In its strongly-worded report on the matter, the committee said: “Richard Sharp’s decisions, firstly to become involved in the facilitation of a loan to the then-prime minister while at the same time applying for a job that was in that same person’s gift, and then to fail to disclose this material relationship, were significant errors of judgement, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process and could deter qualified individuals from applying for such posts.”
The MPs continued: “Mr Sharp should consider the impact his omissions will have on trust in him, the BBC and the public appointments process.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments is reviewing the competition to ensure the process was run in compliance with the rules and we will await the outcome.”
Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.
Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.
They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
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Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded
The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.
Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.
The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.
The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.
On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.
They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.
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Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist
The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.
Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.
“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.
“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”
Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.
It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.
He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”
He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.
Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says
By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.
The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.
In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.
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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know
“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.
Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.
He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.
We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.
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My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.
It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.
All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.
Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.
The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamas and Israel in October.
The GHF which began operations in Gaza after an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.
File pic: Reuters
According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.
In July, analysis from Sky News’ Data and Forensics team found that aid distributions by GHF were associated with a significant increase in deaths.
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.
‘We are proud,’ says GHF director
Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.
The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.
“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.
File pic: Reuters
The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.
“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”
According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.
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Hamas welcomes GHF closure
In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.
A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”
They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.
US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.
“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.
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