Richard Sharp, 67, is a man of many friends. Until now – at the point of his resignation as chair of the BBC over a conflict of interest that had emerged from these cosy relationships – this had suited him just fine.
Some of those friends – like Sam Blyth, the Canadian businessman, bon vivant and distant cousin of Boris Johnson – Sharp has spoken of knowing since leaving the University of Oxford “some 40 years ago”. Others, such as Johnson, who came to benefit from an £800,000 loan guarantee facility from Blyth via Sharp, are more recent in the making, born of a shared politics and the two men’s joint determination to oust Ken Livingstone from his post as London mayor in 2008.
