No10’s threat to BBC: Pick the right boss... or we’ll fire them

The next director-general of the BBC will face the sack unless they embrace major reforms, Downing Street warned last night.

In an unprecedented intervention, No 10 sources said Boris Johnson is ready to act if the Corporation chooses an ‘unsuitable’ successor to Tony hall.

Last night BBC grandee David Dimbleby said any suggestion the Government might influence who got the director-general’s job was ‘outrageous’. he warned any such interference would make the Corporation ‘seem to be a servant of the Government’.

Lord hall announced on Monday he is stepping down two years earlier than planned. It means that the next directorgeneral will be chosen under current BBC chairman Sir David Clementi rather than his successor – who is due to be appointed by the Government in February next year. This has prompted allegations of a ‘stitchup’ by the BBC designed to prevent the Prime Minister having any influence.

A senior No 10 source said the new chairman would be expected to fire any directorgeneral opposed to reform. The source said: ‘We are concerned about reports of a “BBC stitch up” to select the new director-general. Obviously the first task of any new chairman would be to remove an unsuitable director-general immediately.’

The PM’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings led a think-tank that in 2004 called for the ‘end of the BBC in its current form’. In a blog, the now- closed New Frontiers Foundation proposed ‘the creation of a Fox News equivalent’ and said the BBC’s credibility needed undermining, the Guardian reported. It suggested ministers should avoid Radio 4’s Today programme – now an informal Downing Street policy.

Mr Johnson is said to want the BBC to appoint a chief who is ‘open and enthusias tic’ about reform in areas including the provision of free TV licences for the over-75s, decriminalisation of the licence fee and consideration of new funding models.

The PM’s official spokesman said yesterday that a decision on Lord hall’s successor was ‘a matter for the BBC’ but confirmed that Mr Johnson expects the new DG to the decision to scrap free licences. A Government source warned that the new director-general would need to oversee a ‘reset’ at the BBC as it has become ‘out of kilter with the electorate’ on issues ranging from Brexit to immigration.

however Dimbleby, the former host of Question Time and BBC election coverage, said: ‘It would be outrageous and quite improper if the Government tried to influence the choice of director-general.

‘It is very important to keep that clear, not just for the sake of this country but worldwide, that the BBC is not an instrument of Government, but independent of it. The Government has no role at all and no right to interfere in the choice of director-general.’

Dimbleby, 81, said the BBC chairman should quit if the Government tries to get involved. ‘I think the public are more on the side of the BBC, for all its faults, than of the Government,’ he said.