Boris Johnson’s government has appointed a known partisan to the BBC board, in an overt bid to politicise a governance body supposed to be free from political influence.
Robbie Gibb, a former aide to two Tory politicians – he served as Theresa May’s director of communications in No 10, and as chief of staff to former Tory shadow chancellor Francis Maude in the 1990s – has been made the board’s member of England. The role was previously filled by Ashley Steel, the former global head of transport for KPMG, whose political anonymity was typical for those on the BBC board. Gibb, by contrast, is a political appointee filling what has historically been an apolitical role.
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