It would happen...

Under a Labour government. It seems to me that of all the things a government can do, of all the damage they can do to our society and culture with poll taxes and repressive labour laws and underfunding public services, arseing around with the BBC is one of the worst.

Because no matter how much I disdain most of its output, and even its buying decisions, and no matter how symptomatic of "a certain tendency" Gilligan's loose-lipped reporting was, having a BBC is miles better than not having one. I've seen the alternatives, in the US, in Italy, in France, and I know which I prefer. To have an island free of advertising is a blessed thing. To have CBeebies for the kids to watch without (as I've said before) ads for cheap plastic crap coming on every five minutes; or to have Five Live with it's cheery mix of news and sport; or to have BBC News, which sometimes, at least, gets the balance right; these are all good things.

And if this weasel government arses it all up, in their obsession with news management and control, I'll never forgive the bastards.

Hutton, what an idiot. Sat there for all that time and did not once understand that the difference between a journalist on a story and the so-called truth is exactly the same as that between a police detective pursuing a suspect and the successful prosecution of the suspect in a court of law. Different standards apply. The journalist needs to be able to throw things out into the wind to see whose cover gets blown; the police need to throw accusations at people in order to get them to admit something. Hutton applied the "beyond reasonable doubt" truth test, and that's why he got it completely wrong.

Long term, this makes it more likely, as far as I can see, that the Conservatives will get back in at the next election. Nobody will be on the Labour party's side now.