David Dimbleby throws hat in the ring for BBC chairman
Media veteran David Dimbleby has announced he is considering a bid for BBC chairman, claiming he was “horrified” by reports that former Telegraph editor Lord Charles Moore was the Prime Minister’s top pick for the job.
The TV presenter, best known for hosting political debate show Question Time, told the BBC speculation that Moore was tipped for the job forced him to consider applying for the role.
“His appointment as chairman would have been a malign intervention by the Prime Minister… I’m glad it fell apart,” said Dimbleby. “I was going to put my name forward to be chairman.
“For [Boris] Johnson to put in post somebody who hates the BBC was very dangerous for the BBC,” he added.
Asked if he was still considering the position, Dimbleby said: “I still might, depending on who comes forward… [The paperwork] hasn’t yet come through.”
Moore last week ruled himself out of the race to replace current BBC chair David Clementi following furious backlash from industry figures who claimed the former Telegraph editor would “destroy” the broadcaster.
Moore has long-argued for the abolition of the licence fee, and was fined £262 by a court in 2010 for refusing to pay it.
Earlier this year, the BBC arch-critic said the licence fee was “the greatest single wrong on which the BBC rests” and an “offence to freedom”.
Julian Knight, Tory MP and chair of the culture select committee, said appointing a man who refused to pay a licence fee as BBC chairman was “like being convicted of fraud and being in a bank”.
Moore also faced accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia following the unearthing of some of his previous journalism, including a 1992 article in the Spectator in which he drew on stereotypes of Korean and African American culture.
Speaking to the BBC’s Newscast podcast today, Dimbleby said: “I was horrified when I read that Charles Moore had been lined up for the chairmanship. Not because of his political views, but because he hates the BBC.
“No politicians have ever liked the BBC. Harold Wilson was against us; John Major was; Margaret Thatcher certainly was; Boris Johnson is. The BBC is a thorn in the side of government and that’s its job. And therefore, it’s always disliked by government.”
Dimbleby added: “It’s not there to put forward propaganda or a position, it’s there to be a kind of constantly-aware listening post, because everybody pays for it and it belongs to everybody.
“And I thought the idea of the Prime Minister putting in somebody who actually didn’t take that view and had a kind of clear, his own clear personal vision of what the BBC should be like, was dangerous.”
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