BBC boss Tony Hall quit two years early yesterday – with commentators suggesting he was forced out to thwart the Government. The director-general’s surprise departure was also painted as a strategic move so he could prevent Boris Johnson having a say on who replaced him. Insiders claimed that Lord Hall’s departure now, rather than in 2022 as expected, would allow BBC chairman Sir David Clementi to choose his successor without interference. If Lord Hall had stayed on, the Government could have appointed a new chairman who would have been more likely to choose as his replacement a director-general less sympathetic to the BBC’s traditional values. BBC boss Tony Hall quit two years early yesterday – with commentators suggesting he was forced out to thwart the Government However, Robert Peston, the BBC’s former economics editor, speculated last night that instead of this strategic departure, Lord Hall could have been pushed. He said: ‘I’m not sure his departure is a pure exercise of free will.’ Peston claimed he was told by ‘a very-well-placed source’ that Lord Hall hoped to stay on for two years, but chairman David Clementi was ‘on manoeuvres’ to replace him. Writing in The Spectator magazine, he added: ‘Whoever… Read full this story
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