Prime minister Boris Johnson is looking to appoint two outspoken critics of the BBC into the UK broadcasting’s highest regulatory roles.
The Sunday Times reported former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre is the prime minister’s choice to become chairman of Ofcom, which oversees both commercial broadcasting and regulatory areas of the BBC, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, has been asked to be chairman of the BBC.
Both men are described as “arch Brexiteers”, though while Dacre may been seen to want to reign in the BBC amid allegations of perceived bias, he is also said to want to maintain the public broadcaster.
Lord Moore, who wrote a biography of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is among those who believe that non-payment of the licence fee should be decriminalised.
In February, senior civil servant Dame Melanie Dawes was named as the new chief executive of Ofcom. Following her appointment Lord Burns, who had fought to ensure the job went to a civil servant rather than be a political appointment agreed to step down this year, rather than continue in his full term that would have taken him to 2022.
• In an interview on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, culture secretary Oliver Dowden denied The Sunday Times report that the appointments were a “done deal”.
