A much loved British institution - but it has to reform. Photo: Matthew Chattle / Barcroft Media via Getty Images / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
As a political prisoner in Egypt between the years 2002-2006, I recall how even the most ardent of convicted jihadi terrorists would rely on their battery- powered pocket radios to catch the news on BBC World Service.
They valued this over all other sources of information because, in a world where state-run news organisations were often mouthpieces for dishonest regimes, the BBC’s honesty and integrity was a gold standard.
To have built up that level of credibility and trust, so that even self-avowed enemies of Britain relied on our news service, is testimony to the achievement of the BBC and decades of reputation-building. It is an achievement too important to be squandered. In a time of “deep fakes” and commercialised American cable “news” producing distorted partisan rubbish, resisting the democratisation of truth for “alternative facts” carries a social value worth subsidising.
Yet as a new chapter in the political dispute between the Government and the BBC unfolds, and battle lines are drawn between progressives and conservatives, it would be odd and inconsistent for the Left to side with a national institution simply because of nostalgia and tradition. It is an institution, and like all institutions it needs to reform.
Downing Street is openly exploring plans to scrap the licence fee and introduce a subscription model, forcing the sale of most of the corporation’s regional radio output. Left-wing and liberal commentators have looked on aghast, accusing the Prime Minister of cultural vandalism. But while this is a necessary debate to be had, to have it along party political lines would be — as is usually the case with our tribal politics — deeply inconsistent.
The BBC is our National Church, and comes replete with its own temples, gods and saints to match. It’s an institution that brings us together and defines our identity as a nation, and has seen us through some very bad times. It’s natural that we should revere it. And like a Church, it has become too holy for its followers, in this case liberals, to touch.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeTom, I love the way you think about things. Thanks for writing this. Knowledge of these effects, biases, theories etc have been bubbling away in my sub conscious but now I have a name for them. Thanks.
This is a great opinion piece. At the risk of being a little too inside baseball, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) previously included the TV licence fee in the Retail Prices Index (RPI), but excluded it from the CPI. This was the case when the coalition government of David Cameron started uprating pensions and tax credits in April 2011, tasks previously reserved to the RPI, and quite inappropriate to a macroeconomic index like the CPI. Since the February 2012 update of the CPI, the ONS has included the TV licence fee, blurring the distinction between it as a macroeconomic index and the RPI as a household-oriended measure. This makes little sense as the CPI is a macroeconomic consumer price series, the target inflation indicator of the Bank of England. Until December 2003 it was the called the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) of the UK, and it still is, even though it doesn’t go by that name. Eurostat’s 2004 user guide notes: “The HICPs cover the prices paid for goods and services in monetary transactions. So for example some special fees and taxes paid to government for licenses will be excluded (when there is no equivalent good or service received in return).” As Mr. Nahwaz makes clear, the TV licence fee will hit someone “watching any live programme, on any device _ even if not the BBC”. It cannot be construed as a payment for a service received, any should be treated as a licence fee to be excluded from the CPI. By contrast, the inclusion of the TV licence fee, for as long as it continues, is appropriate in the experimental Household Cost Indices (HCIs). These are household-oriented consumer price series, like the RPI, and its scope should include licences and fees not included in a macroeconomic consumer price series. Also, the ONS should reverse its previous decision, and remove TV licence fees from the CPI and its strange offshoot, the CPIH. A different treatment of TV licence fees in the UK HICP as opposed to the RPI and the HCIs is appropriate and desirable. The UK does not need one index to rule them all and in the darkness bind them, although that was, unfortunately, the dysfunctional conclusion of the recent House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report “Measuring Inflation”.
The BBC as Orwell said over 70 years ago, is nothing more than a twisted propaganda machine. The issue today is how that propaganda is being used, and against what / whom. There is no doubt in my mind that it’s entire narrative, in 95% of the programmes, is anti-White, anti-Nation State and anti-Christian. It should be abolished ASAP. My TV has been in the loft for 2 years where it will stay until I next go to the local Civic Amenity Site.