THERE were many chilling moments during the election campaign, but one sent an icicle down my spine.
Attempting to divert attention from a photo of a child lying on a hospital floor awaiting treatment, Boris Johnson intimated that he was questioning the BBC’s right to a licence fee: “you have to ask yourself whether that kind of approach to funding a TV media organisation still makes sense in the long term given the way other media organisations manage to fund themselves,” he said.
That this bombshell was pronounced with his usual throwaway chutzpah tells you much about the Prime Minister’s personality. When you can issue a threat in the same tone as commenting on a Gregg’s sausage roll, there is no longer any doubt about the punitive, you might say sinister, undercurrents at work beneath an exterior of well-practised cheer.
Johnson was plainly still smarting at the challenge issued by Andrew Neil to submit to an interview. Other party leaders – Jo Swinson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage, Nicola Sturgeon – had already endured this trial by ordeal and, if they had not all emerged with distinction, at least managed to maintain their dignity under the arch-interrogator’s ferocious fire.
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That Johnson was scared goes without saying. Who wouldn’t be? But that he retaliated for his humiliating dressing down by launching a damaging salvo against the BBC is the action of a bully. In this he and his cronies already had form. After Channel 4 used an ice sculpture as the PM’s stand-in when he declined to join a leaders’ debate on climate change, Number 10 talked of initiating a review of Channel 4’s public service broadcast licence. This is not an iron fist in a velvet glove. It is an open display of knuckledusters. Former Radio 4 presenter Eddie Mair’s comment when interviewing Johnson as Mayor of London sprang to mind: “You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”
Following his initial comment about abolishing the licence fee with speculation over decriminalising those who refuse to pay, the Conservative party is now talking of boycotting Radio 4’s Today programme. This, the flagship of the station’s current affairs output, is deemed “irrelevant” by party HQ; Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings has boasted of never listening to it.
It is insidious and disturbing stuff. What’s the first thing a dictator does when getting into power? Take control of the airwaves. Now obviously, since the Tories are in office by huge popular demand, you could argue that democracy is in fine fettle and there is nothing despotic about the way the party has been returned to power.
But how democratic can this country be if political leaders refuse to be open to scrutiny or held to account? As public servants, on what principle, other than the desire not to lose face, do they absent themselves from clear-sighted interrogation? Whether it is Today or Andrew Neil, or some other hard-hitting inquisitor, all these are legitimate encounters which, while no doubt uncomfortable, are an integral part of any politician’s duties. Without rigorous, even-handed examination, viewers and listeners hear only what MPs and MSPs want to say. That’s not democracy, it’s propaganda.
Post-election, Conservatives are seething about perceived BBC bias. They argue that the corporation was anything but fair, showing a marked pro-Remain slant from the start. Interesting, though, that almost every party complained during the run-up to the election about its coverage. Be it Labour or the SNP, the Brexit Party or the LibDems, all of them, it seemed, felt aggrieved.
That suggests, surely, that the Beeb was doing its job well. It’s no easy task, and I listen and watch with awe as its journalists remain scrupulously neutral. Not betraying by so much as a cough or a blink where their political allegiances lie, they hold to their line of inquiry with dogged politeness. And while I have reservations about some aspects of the corporation’s output, there’s no doubting its impartiality. Indeed, as Johnson starts a conversation about its future funding – or crippling lack thereof – you start to wonder what life would be like without it.
READ MORE: BBC in fresh bias row amid claims they removed audience laughter at Boris Johnson on Question Time
Two institutions define Britain: the NHS and the BBC. One is universally loved and championed, the other is at risk of melting like the polar ice cap as the media climate heats up. Johnson was right to say that similar organisations are forced to exist without a public subsidy. What this ignores, however, is the remit and purpose of a state-funded broadcaster. Its aim is to reach and reflect all parts of the country, and to do so without worrying about political interference or commercial gain.
In recent years, new platforms for news, films, radio and music have been eroding its monolithic position. Aware of the danger posed by the likes of Netflix and Amazon, and access to any radio station worldwide that you care to name via iPad or phone, the Beeb is fighting a rearguard action to reclaim its pre-eminence, or at least prevent a fatal haemorrhage.
Yet although I, like countless millions, often turn to other outlets for drama or documentaries, and Channel 4 News is a must, if I was forced to choose I would stick solely to Auntie. The main reason is radio. It provides the soundtrack to my life, stations filling differing needs according to time of day and what I’m doing. I can’t imagine a dawn that does not break in the company of Farming Today or Mishal Husain and her colleagues on Today, an afternoon that starts with World at One and winds up with PM; a weekend without the balm of Radio 3, or the prattle of Radio 5 Live and its hyperventilating football pundits.
Sentiment and habit aside, it is the BBC’s founding principles that make its future security important for all of us. No other broadcaster holds itself to the same dispassionate, egalitarian and educative standards. Of course it doesn’t always succeed, and has failures as well as triumphs. But for £154.50 a year, Lord Reith’s brainchild casts its competitors into the shade. That the Prime Minister wants to intimidate, cowe and diminish this national treasure, risking it becoming as dangerously dependent on market forces as all the rest, is proof of its authority and integrity. And a most telling commentary on his.
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