The BBC

The BBC license fee is to increase. Now there's a surprise! Apparently, it's less than Auntie wanted. So that's all right, then. How the armed forces, for example, must marvel at the BBC's hold over governments of both parties. The former are sent into Afghanistan and Iraq, and no doubt also into Syria and Iran soon enough, armed with little more than broom-handles, and conkers on strings. But every 10 years, the BBC's top brass simply writes out a list of demands and sends it to the relevant Secretary of State (of either party). And lo, it is done. Just like that.

And for what? The BBC did not bother to tell the license-payers that a man touring the country presenting himself as a potential Prime Minister was in fact a notorious alcoholic. Its over-hyping, and generally biased coverage, then came within inches of creating a situation in which not only did all three Party Leaders share its prejudices (the opposite of almost everything set out here), but all three went from major public schools to Oxford, two (Blair and Huhne) during exactly the same years, and two (Cameron and Huhne) to read for the same degree. Since Sir Menzies Campbell beat Chris Huhne for the Leadership of the Liberal Democrats, he has been subjected to endless BBC sniping. Meanwhile, the BBC simply ignores any younger politician who did not go to Oxford, as if even Cambridge did not exist.

The BBC Governors should be elected by and from among the license-payers of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and each of the nine English regions (though respecting historic county boundaries). Each license-payer would vote for one candidate (of sufficient political independence to qualify, in principle, as a member of a local authority’s Remuneration Committee), with the top two per area declared elected at the end, giving twenty-four in all. A Chairman would be appointed by the Secretary of State, subject to the approval of the relevant Select Committee of the House of Commons. Like the other Governors, the Chairman would have a fixed four-year term of office. This would set the pattern for the reform of many other bodies, reforms rightly involving the whole electorate rather than just those who pay the television license fee.