Boris Johnson is set to appoint Paul Dacre as the new Ofcom chair, giving him a remit to target the BBC.
The former Daily Mail editor, who waged a war on the “fascist left” during his time as head of the paper, will also be offered a peerage to sweeten the deal, it has been reported.
“This is an appalling idea,” one leading figure in British TV management told The Guardian. “A key role for Ofcom in the coming months will be focusing on improving the nation’s broadband, which is vital not just for business but for social inclusion. Dacre knows nothing about any of that.”
Concerns have also been raised over his impartiality having been a prominent Brexit backer and long-time opponent of the liberal left.
Under his tenure he ran headlines such as “The Swarm On Our Streets” in relation to migrants as well as peddling other nationalistic hyperbole such as “Migrants Spark Housing Crisis”, “Foreign Murderers And Rapists We Can’t Throw Out” and “More Migrants Are On Their Way”.
On August 31 2009, a Daily Mail headline asserted: “One out of every five killers is an immigrant”.
“Up to a fifth of killers in England and Wales are foreign, police figures suggest,” the story told readers of Mr Dacre’s Daily Mail. “As foreign suspects are typically harder to identify and trace, meaning that crimes are less likely to be solved, the real proportion could be significantly higher.”
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