“Serious questions” need to be answered about the “shambolic” way the Government is appointing people to national cultural and media bodies, ministers have been told. Conservative MP Julian Knight, who chairs the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee, said that he and fellow committee members had been “made a fool of” over the past year. One of the allegations of inappropriate behaviour involved Mr Thomas sending a picture in a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store to a colleague “in error”, while working for a women’s charity. A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “All due process was followed in the search for a chair. He had said that the commission should not get involved in arguments about “woke” or “anti-woke” politics.

Source: The Times December 23, 2021 19:30 UTC