The news that 50 daft Tory MPs are calling for the abolition of the BBC licence fee prompted me to write a defence of the fee in my London Evening Standard column today. I make no apologies for repeating here what I have written there.
Before I do, I also commend the comments of Harriet Harman in her speech at the Salford International Media festival.
She is right to demand that culture secretary Sajid Javid should support the BBC in order to deflate members of his own party who are seeking to destroy it.
Harman, Javid’s shadow, said: “There are many Tory MPs who oppose the whole idea of public service broadcasting and would love to please the BBC’s private sector detractors by dismembering it.”
Indeed. That was my starting point for my Standard column in which I began by asking: do Conservative MPs hate the BBC so much they want it bring about its demise?
It was the only possible conclusion to draw from their call to abolish the licence fee and institute a system of voluntary subscription in its place. I asked whether that was the view of their constituents.
I know people moan about the BBC. Everyone does, including many of its staff. But do the British people want to destroy an institution that is esteemed everywhere in the world except in its home country?
It is possible that they have been unduly influenced by persistent criticism from rival media, especially in newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, whose other media outfit, 21st Century Fox, has a controlling interest in BSkyB.
The Daily Mail and Daily Express also revel in bashing the BBC at every turn. And the Daily Telegraph is anything but a fan.
Say something even mildly rude about the Telegraph’s reclusive owners, the Barclay boyos, and you can guarantee a complaint arriving. The BBC has to take far worse on an almost daily basis.
I concede (as, I note, did Harman) that the BBC is full of imperfections. It is Britain’s largest media organisation and it has to be said that its ubiquity does present other media in this digital era with challenges.
That is not, however, a reason to dismantle it altogether. Nor should various other controversies, such as the Jimmy Savile scandal, be adduced as proof that it is all bad.
The BBC cannot win. It has fallen foul of almost every government during my lifetime, particularly those of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, who both, in different ways, exacted revenge.
Now the threat to the BBC is existential. Make no mistake, whether the licence fee is scrapped, reduced or merely required to remain at its current level, the BBC as we know it will suffer.
Some people may cheer. They may claim they shouldn’t pay because they never watch a BBC channel, listen to any of its radio outlets, click on to its website or see a film produced under its umbrella.
Even if they are correct, and I doubt it, I suspect they form only a small minority of the population. And they need to grasp that the BBC is part of the climate that influences British culture. It is the measure against which other broadcasting outlets test their own news and entertainment output.
I am not against a sensible review of BBC funding: accessing the BBC online through its iPlayer does presents a problem, although I think it may be possible a technological answer to that is not insurmountable.
Meanwhile, let’s put the licence fee in perspective. It is £145.50 a year - that’s 40p a day. Not 40p per person but 40p per household. How can that be considered onerous?
In return, the corporation offers a range of TV and radio channels to suit every taste, thereby fulfilling its remit to serve the entire population. It also happens to be Britain’s largest and most reliable domestic and foreign news-gatherer.
Of course, it needs to be careful how it spends the licence fee. Big pay-offs were a disgrace, now thankfully concluded. Hospitality freebies should be curbed.
Executives must not throw parties and spend money as if they are part of a profit-making commercial company. The director-general, Lord (Tony) Hall, and appears to be dealing with it.
It is time for people to rally to the BBC’s cause in the face of the Tory assault. The public must think more deeply about what they will lose if they allow politicians to destroy it.