Bbc Set Record Straight Re James Dyson Accusation:

[lankeela]

“The BBC’s characterisation of me as a prominent Conservative donor, or supporter, leveraging a position of power to extract favours from the Prime Minister, is completely untrue,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

“I have met Boris Johnson only three times – always with officials – the last time in 2016. I have not attended any Conservative social events.”

On a BBC corrections and clarifications web page, the publicly-funded broadcaster responded to Sir James’ objections to the way he had been described.

“In our coverage of texts he had sent to the Prime Minister we referred in various outlets to Sir James Dyson as a prominent Conservative supporter or said he backed the Conservatives,” the website entry on Monday said.

“Sir James says this is factually incorrect. We are happy to set the record straight.

[Ellipsis]

Correcting* Mistakes ;-)

[Khandro]

I can't vouch for all of his products, but James Dyson is an OK guy, he's a good friend of a good friend, (name-dropping warning) but I've sat next to him at dinner, enjoyed his company, & found him to be a man sans peur et sans reproche

[douglas9401]

To be clear then, Jimmy's NOT a Conservative supporter and doesn't back the Conservatives.

[naomi24]

Ellipsis, you said //The story is now on bbc.co.uk, in a minor way:
This means that it's much less likely to be "fake news"//

… and now retractions to fake news. Nuff said.

[Spicerack]

They ain't making 'mistakes'.
In his autobiography, Dyson was effusive about his West Country? employees who jumped through hoops and worked without pay to help him through some hard times in the early days.
One might say he didn't return their loyalty.
Of course, you can't always do what you want in business (or even what's 'right')

[Ellipsis]

Naomi - read the OP carefully. He did send texts. He did ask for tax breaks (which I think was entirely reasonable, by the way, in the circumstances).

What the Beeb apologised for was referring to him as a prominent supporter of the Conservative party.

He is prominent (we've all heard of him), he has supported the Tories in the past (given them a big donation), he does have Boris's mobile phone number, but ... the BBC has accepted that he is not a prominent supporter of the Conservative Party. That's it.

The story itself, about texting the PM, was not fake news.

[naomi24]

Yeah but, no but ..... :o)