Barefaced cheek

There's some moderately good news on the BBC front - the corporation looks as though it will lose some of the licence fee, which will be used to prop up ailing commercial broadcasters. OK, so propping up businesses with obsolete business models is not a good thing of itself, but removing the licence fee is a top priority for restoring a modicum of sanity to public debate in this country.

The reaction of the BBC is an outrage though - Sir Michael Lyons is quoted as saying

People would do well to remember that licence fee payers give us their money in good faith, believing it will be spent on BBC services and content. "To suddenly tell them midway through the settlement that their money is being siphoned off, as some have suggested it should be, would be more than an act of bad faith, it would be tantamount to breaking a contract.

What a travesty that statement is. A contract is freely entered into by both sides. The licence fee isn't. Whichever way you look at it, Sir Michael is living mafia-style off the fruits of an elaborate protection racket. He is a party apparatchik who has reached the position he is in because he is a Labour party loyalist.

We can do without his pious cant about bad faith and breach of contract.