Are the Tories running the BBC?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The BBC's mantra is that impartiality - and the perception of impartiality - must be at its core.
Yet following revelations in The Sunday Times we are coming to understand the nature of the relationship between the former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his financial needs, and the current Chairman of the BBC - an old friend of his, Richard Sharp.
Today, we ask why the Chairman failed to declare details that might have compromised that impartiality. And we speak to former Chair of the BBC Board Diane Coyle, who is horrified at what has emerged.
We approached the BBC for comment before publishing this episode.
Video: Will Gibson-Smith
Planning: Alex Barnett
Production: Gabriel Radus
Editor: Tom Hughes
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The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
The News Agents is executive produced by Dino Sofos.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Global Player original podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | How are you doing? |
| 0:07.0 | A Repositure? |
| 0:08.0 | You're going to do? |
| 0:09.0 | This is a load of complete nonsense. |
| 0:11.0 | Absolutely nonsense. |
| 0:12.0 | Let me just tell you. |
| 0:14.0 | Richard Sharp is a good and a wise man. |
| 0:16.0 | But he knows absolutely nothing about my personal finances. |
| 0:19.0 | I can tell you that for 100% ding-dang shore. |
| 0:22.8 | This is just another example of the BBC disappearing up its own fundament. |
| 0:27.8 | And that I propose is... |
| 0:29.7 | So it's just a coincidence that this appointment was arranged at the same time as your loan? |
| 0:35.0 | That was the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, being doorstepped on his own doorstep in London. |
| 0:42.2 | He's now back from Ukraine. |
| 0:44.2 | And he's walked back into a mess. |
| 0:47.5 | And the mess concerns his own financial chaos. |
| 0:54.1 | And whether the BBC's chairman, a long-standing friend of Boris Johnson, |
| 1:00.5 | in fact helped to forge a relationship that would allow Boris Johnson access to a large loan. |
| 1:17.1 | And if so, should that have been declared more publicly? |
| 1:24.2 | Should we have been allowed to know that the Prime Minister was literally, if you like, indebted to the man he would then go on to a point as chairman of the BBC. |
| 1:29.8 | Because the bigger picture on all of this is that the loan was being organised at exactly the same |
... |
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