Let’s improve the bbc — but knock it at our peril | thearticle

Nigel Lawson should have used the letters “BBC” instead of “NHS” when he stated it was “the closest thing the English have to a religion, with those who practise it regarding themselves as a

priesthood”.  Take David Attenborough’s latest sermon on the sins of climate change, given from the pulpit of BBC1’s 8 till 9 Sunday night prime slot. It drove the highest iPlayer viewing

figures in the platform’s history. It also drove the “anti-clerics” mad, with the likes of Sarah Vine tweeting “Tuned in to watch a bit of David Attenborough but am now being subjected to

propaganda. Yes, I know: humanity is an evil plague on the planet. But can I just look at some elephants please?” Then there is Gary Lineker. The Church of Auntie paid the ex-England goal

poacher, Match of the Day host and aspiring political pundit a whopping £1.75 million in the 2019/20 financial year. He repays this by sermonising Remoaner rhetoric and politically point

scoring by inviting refugees to live in his home. The BBC is charged with trying to create any number of horrific dystopian futures dependent on what variety of chip resides on your

shoulder. Listen to the likes of Julia Hartley-Brewer and the BBC is trying to subject Albion under the yoke of Woke. The Left accuses it of being a monarchist propaganda channel and

apologist for big business. Scottish and Welsh Nationalists see the institution as profoundly Unionist and only interested in Westminster; English nationalists see it as only interested in

selling Westminster out to Brussels. Search “Brussels” on the BBC website and all you get is recipes for sprouts. The corporation is too big, too bureaucratic, and too wrapped up in itself

to be any good to anyone. So, if the BBC is such a basket-case, why has China banned BBC World News from broadcasting in the country? Surely an institution which the pressure group “Defund

the BBC” has accused of “harassment and prosecution of the British people, particularly during a pandemic” must be helpful to Beijing? The easy answer is that the Chinese ban is revenge for

the British media regulator Ofcom revoking state broadcaster China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) licence to broadcast in the UK. The reality is deeper than that. China hates the BBC

almost as much as the _Daily Mail_ loathes Emily Maitlis. This is because the Beeb really is the most trusted source of news in the world. In 2018 a Harris Poll found the BBC to be the most

reliable global news brand. In 2019, globalwebindex interviewed 138,000 people around the world. It found that their most trustworthy news service, by a considerable margin, was the BBC.

Last year the Reuters Institute found that 56 per cent of Americans regarded the BBC as the most trustworthy source of news in their own country.  Therefore, when the BBC reported on Chinese

persecution of ethnic minority Uighurs, or on the suppression of Hong Kong, or on cover-ups when dealing with coronavirus, Beijing found itself being asked questions it would rather avoid.

This is thanks to the rest of the world respecting what the BBC says as reliable, non-partisan news.  So we, the British, should be proud to fund such an institution with our licence fees.

China and Russia are fighting an information war with the West — and the British are sitting on the broadcasting equivalent of a nuclear arsenal, in the form of the BBC. If the success of

liberal democracy is dependent on the Fourth Estate holding power to account, then we should be celebrating the BBC, not using it as a punchbag for whichever gripe we have with life in the

UK at that moment. Yes, let us hold the BBC to account, call for justifiable reform and demand better value or practice. However, we are in danger of pulling the institution down from

within. That would be an act of grave cultural and political vandalism. And, if it were to happen, the cheers in Tiananmen Square and the Kremlin would be deafening.  A MESSAGE FROM

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