By Paul Revoir PUBLISHED: 19:26 EST, 14 February 2013 | UPDATED: 19:27 EST, 14 February 2013 James Purnell, who served as both Culture and Work and Pensions Secretary in Gordon Brown's Cabinet, has been appointed as the BBC's strategy chief The appointment of a former Labour cabinet minister to a senior BBC job on a salary of almost £300,000 a year last night re-ignited concerns over the corporation’s links with the Left. James Purnell, who served as both Culture and Work and Pensions Secretary under Gordon Brown, has been handed the job as the corporation’s strategy chief. MPs claimed it was ‘unprecedented’ to have someone with such a politically active past become a senior BBC executive, while others said having a ‘partisan political figure’ would do little to reassure people that the corporation is impartial.
@highlight
Ex-Culture and Work and Pensions Secretary resigns party membership
@highlight
He will be a key figure in BBC charter renewal negotiations
@highlight
Purnell will become one of the Corporation's most powerful executives
MPs warned he would have to make it clear he had put his ‘@placeholder affiliations’ well behind him.