This cynical ploy by Nadine Dorries to undermine BBC and scrap licence fee is undemocratic – Andrew Vine

LET’S cast our minds back to the 2019 election campaign, and the Conservative campaign that put Boris Johnson into power with a landslide. Does anybody remember a manifesto commitment to embark on the vindictive and ideologically-driven destruction of the BBC? No, me neither.
File photo dated 15/10/2021 of Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries who has said the next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last" amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.File photo dated 15/10/2021 of Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries who has said the next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last" amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.
File photo dated 15/10/2021 of Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries who has said the next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last" amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.

No such pledge was made, and if it had even been suggested, I’d have voted against it and so would millions of others. Yet a campaign to destroy the BBC that is as cynical as it is spiteful is now under way, with a Government up to its neck in scandals of its own making seeking to tear down one of the great pillars of British life to divert attention from its own grubbiness.

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The announcement at the weekend by the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, that the BBC licence fee is to be frozen for the next two years is designed to starve the corporation of money. Not content with that, she said the licence fee would be abolished after the current Royal Charter expires in 2027 and that the BBC would have to find other ways to fund itself. On whose say-so, Ms Dorries? Not that of the electorate, for sure, because the question has not been put to us. And it is all of us who own the BBC. To set out to destroy it without the consent of the people is not only wrong, but unconstitutional.

File photo dated 21/2020 of BBC Broadcasting House in London. The next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last", the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has said, amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.File photo dated 21/2020 of BBC Broadcasting House in London. The next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last", the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has said, amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.
File photo dated 21/2020 of BBC Broadcasting House in London. The next announcement about the BBC licence fee "will be the last", the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has said, amid reports it will be frozen for the next two years. The annual payment, which normally changes on April 1 each year, is expected to be kept at the current rate of £159 until April 2024.

There has long been a deep-seated animosity towards the BBC on the right of the Conservatives, where Ms Dorries dwells. They are ideologically opposed to its public funding model, and its remit to broadcast the widest possible spectrum of views with fairness and impartiality irks them.

The Government has been gunning for the BBC for the past few years, with a drip-drip of accusations that it is institutionally left-wing and hostile to the Conservatives, and this is about taking revenge on the corporation’s journalism for doing the job that it is supposed to do, in reporting and questioning the behaviour of the Government and the Prime Minister in particular.

Boris Johnson is in real trouble – the country knows it and his MPs, sweating on the consequences for their own seats, know it.

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So attacking the BBC is both a diversionary tactic and a sop to MPs to persuade them not to withdraw their support of Mr Johnson and trigger a vote of no confidence in him.

Laura Kuenssberg is the BBC's outgoing political editor.Laura Kuenssberg is the BBC's outgoing political editor.
Laura Kuenssberg is the BBC's outgoing political editor.

This is sickeningly cynical. It is an attempt to turn public opinion against the BBC and at the same time put pressure on its national news operation to soft-pedal its coverage of the Government. The Government should know that no self-respecting journalist would do that, and the BBC certainly will not.

And it is on a hiding to nothing if it thinks public anger towards Mr Johnson and those around him can be diverted towards the BBC. On the contrary, the public is much more likely to be appreciative of insightful reporting than resentful of it.

Nor is the public going to be hoodwinked by a Minister expressing concern about the impact the £159 licence fee has on low-income households. Against the backdrop of energy bills doubling in the next few months, the highest inflation for a generation, and a rise in national insurance – all of which the public will blame on the Government – the licence fee is far from being a huge imposition.

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Ms Dorries risks alienating the public with her hostility towards the BBC.

There is a huge reservoir of affection for the institution across Britain. Of course the broadcast landscape has been changed by the rise of subscription services, but attacking the BBC does not usefully contribute to a discussion about how the corporation can best adapt and thrive.

And in the assault on the corporation, particularly its news and current affairs output, is any Minister really stopping to consider who, in an age of misinformation and fake news, is going to provide a trustworthy and comprehensive source of broadcast journalism if the BBC is wrecked? Netflix? Amazon Prime? Hardly likely.

A veteran and highly successful television screenwriter once said to me: “The BBC is like the NHS. It’s huge, it’s unwieldy, it sometimes gets things wrong, but it’s still better than any of the alternatives.”

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He was right, and the public senses that, whatever its faults, the BBC remains not just a cherished part of national life, but a broadcaster that rightly enjoys the trust of its audiences.

A battle for the BBC lies ahead, and the Government may find to its cost that viewers and listeners are disinclined to see it destroyed.

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