Idea of Charles Moore as BBC chair 'beyond the pale', says Tory MP

Charles Moore’s suitability to be the next chair of the BBC has come in for further criticism after the Tory head of the parliamentary culture committee suggested it would be “beyond the pale” to appoint someone who has been convicted for not paying the licence fee.

The former Telegraph chair, believed to be Boris Johnson’s choice to be the next chair of the corporation, was fined £262 10 years ago for refusing to pay the annual levy in protest at the BBC’s failure to fire Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand after the presenters had been accused of bullying actor Andrew Sachs live on air.

At a meeting of the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee about the BBC on Tuesday, its chair, Julian Knight, said: “Surely as an organisation which is absolutely wedded in change to the licence fee, which is 70% of its revenue, to have a chairman, whoever that may be, to be convicted of non-payment of a licence fee seems to be completely beyond the pale? It’s almost like being convicted of fraud and being in a bank.”

Knight was questioning the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, who refused to answer directly Knight’s “yes or no” question as to whether it was acceptable for someone with a conviction for licence fee evasion to be the next chair of the corporation.

Knight said earlier this year that it was hard to justify enforcing the licence fee through the criminal courts, which makes his intervention all the more significant.

He said on Tuesday the committee was writing to the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, “to outline the committee’s concerns over the news stories that emerged this weekend”.

Those reports said that as well as Moore being lined up to be the next BBC chair, the former Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, was the prime minister’s choice to be the next head of Ofcom, raising fears Johnson is intent on creating a corporation more malleable to the government’s will.

Knight’s misgivings about the possible appointment of Moore come after others had raised concerns about the former Telegraph’s editor’s opinion pieces written in the past about Muslims, black and LGBT+ people.

The current BBC chair, Sir David Clementi, told the DCMS committee: “Davie said: ‘If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media, that’s a valid choice but you should not be working at the BBC.’

“But the point I want to make is impartiality starts at the top of the organisation, it doesn’t start halfway down, it starts with the chair and the board. If the candidate [for chair] comes from that sort of background, he or she will need to demonstrate to you that they have left their strong political views at the door.”

The Guardian revealed on Monday that Moore had written an article for the Spectator in 1992 in which talking about black people, he wrote: “If it is true, as it surely is that some races – the Jews are the obvious example – are highly enterprising and talented, it may also be true that some are the opposite.”

Moore has also written that Muslim immigration brings “more political disturbance, more communal tension, more intolerance of other faiths (and of non-faiths) and more terrorism”, compared legalising gay marriage to allowing one “to marry one’s dog”, and supported gay conversion therapy.

Those comments led the Muslim Council of Britain and the veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to say he was not fit to be the next BBC chair. The actor, comedian and producer, Lenny Henry, said the next chair should be “someone who recognises the importance of diversity, inclusion and representation both in front and behind the camera”.

The Guardian also revealed on Monday that in an unpublished interview from 2014, Moore alleged that the broadcaster had prevented the flowering of possible rivals in blunt terms. “It’s a great abortionist of creativity,” he said. “There’s a lot of sort of unborn babies because of the BBC.”

With reference to the appointment process for his successor, Clementi said: “Article 22 of the charter says the appointment may only be made following a fair and open competition, So due process is important. In line with this, I hope the government will encourage well qualified candidates to apply so that there is a strong and diverse field rather than putting them off by giving the impression that there is already a preferred candidate.”