Charles Moore, the former Daily Telegraph editor, has ruled himself out of becoming the chairman of the BBC.
The news comes just one week after it emerged that Moore had been offered the job by UK prime minister Boris Johnson and that the appointment was “virtually a donde deal”. This was met by significant backlash, with Moore being an outspoken critic of the broadcaster and even being convicted of refusing to pay the licence fee.
Moore’s emergence as a candidate also saw a number of controversial writings on race and religion come to the fore.
Now, The Guardian has reported that Moore is understood to have turned the job down due to family health problems. The paper also reported that Moore would have demanded a substantial increase to the BBC chair’s current salary of £100,000.
The initial report also suggested that the prime minister had approached former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre to take over as chairman of broadcast regulator Ofcom. Despite Dacre’s similarly controversial editorial past, this has been met with little public outcry and may be confirmed.
The BBC and Ofcom are both required to follow the formal recruitment process, but there are fears that the government could force through an appointment of its choosing.
