Did anyone really expect Huw Edwards to return the £200,000 he ‘earned’ – or, more correctly, was paid – between his arrest in November 2023 and when he finally resigned from the BBC the following April?
The BBC’s chairman, Samir Shah, appeared to think so when he faced the Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport on Tuesday.
‘We’ve obviously asked, and we’ve said it many times, but he seems unwilling. There was a moment that we thought he might just do the right thing for a change, then he decided not to.’
If it was Mr Shah himself doing the asking, he was no doubt impeccably polite. Director-general Tim Davie has previously hinted that the BBC would go further and use legal means to get its hands on the money, but either that hasn’t actually materialised or it hasn’t worked.
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