Star: Ian Hislop refused to sign a letter in support of the BBC because he thought it was 'inappropriate'

Ian Hislop refused to sign the BBC’s controversial ‘luvvies’ letter’ because he didn’t want to appear like an ‘overpaid w*****’, he has revealed.

The Have I Got News For You presenter said the BBC asked him to put his name to the lobbying letter, but that he thought a missive from a ‘load of famous people’ paid by the Corporation was ‘entirely inappropriate’.

A string of writers, actors and presenters, including JK Rowling, Sir David Attenborough and Stephen Fry, signed the open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron in July, telling him that the Government’s plan to reform the BBC would damage Britain.

‘If there was a letter from 50 midwives saying: “The only thing that makes our lives bearable is watching Poldark” – that’s a worthwhile letter. To have a letter from a load of famous people saying, “I like the BBC and I get paid by them”, I mean, so what?’ Mr Hislop said in an interview with Press Gazette magazine.

‘Had I seen my name on the list, I would have thought: “You overpaid w***** – why should I care what you say?"

‘God no – entirely inappropriate,’ he added.

In the end, the lobbying effort severely backfired, after it emerged that the BBC had secretly organised the letter.

Director of television Danny Cohen personally telephoned Michael Palin and other stars to ask them to put their names to the letter. One of the 29 signatories, the Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale, even admitted that she did not read the letter before it was made public.

It is thought that Mr Cohen's wife, the glamorous Cambridge professor Noreena Hertz, put him up to it, after organising a similar letter on behalf of the Liberal Democrats in 2010.

However, many of the stars who signed the luvvies' letter faced a backlash from MPs and licence fee payers, who accused them of behaving like greedy bankers.

Conservative MP Andrew Percy said it was 'a bit rich and self-serving', whilst viewers attacked Gary Lineker on Twitter.

MPs have now asked the BBC director general to investigate Mr Cohen’s behaviour, amid concerns that he broke the BBC’s own editorial rules with this ‘direct attempt by proxy to influence a government initiative’.

Organisers: The letter was arranged by BBC head of television Danny Cohen and his wife Noreena Hertz

Conservative MP Jesse Norman, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, told BBC boss Lord Tony Hall this week: ‘I put it to you that the Corporation’s editorial policy says that the BBC must be independent and – I quote – “distanced from government initiatives, campaigns, charities and other agendas".'

The BBC has repeatedly defended the lobbying initiative as ‘perfectly proper’.

The Corporation initially denied having ‘anything’ to do with the letter, and then issued a carefully worded statement insisting that it was ‘from the signatories [and] speaks for itself.’

However, BBC Trust chairman Rona Fairhead appeared to re-write history earlier this week, when she told MPs that ‘the BBC made it clear that they were involved, so none of the public will have been under any illusion that there had been some BBC participation.’

Controversy: Stars such as Gary Lineker and David Attenborough were among those who signed the letter

Mr Hislop refused to reveal who asked him to sign the controversial letter, but told Press Gazette that he though the BBC was ‘playing all its cards very, very badly’.

The presenter, who also edits Private Eye magazine, said that he thinks the BBC produces high quality programmes, but that it is damaged by its own management and the ‘cackhandedness’ of some of its decisions.

He said: ‘I think it’s playing all its cards very, very badly at the moment... there’s a feebleness and a lack of robustness about the Beeb – and obviously cackhandedness – hat has allowed it to be in this position of going, “Oh the BBC, it’s a big worry.”