The chairman of the BBC quit Friday after a report found he failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest over his role in arranging a 2021 loan for Boris Johnson, who was the U.K.’s prime minister at the time.
The publicly funded national broadcaster has been under political pressure after it was revealed that Richard Sharp helped arrange the line of credit weeks before he was appointed to the BBC post on the government’s recommendation.
The 800,000 pound ($1 million) line of credit came from wealthy Canadian businessman Sam Blyth, who was introduced to Johnson by Sharp, a Conservative Party donor. Johnson was the party’s leader as well as British prime minister.
[Here in the US, we’d call that pay-to-play, or just flat-out bribery. Johnson has been working on a comeback almost ever since resigning as PM, but he may need to focus more on potential legal liabilities instead. — Ed]
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