I’ve seen wars more amusing than BBC comedy

Last weekend’s papers claimed that the government desires a ‘massively pruned back’ BBC. Former Conservative cabinet minister Damian Green and someone called Huw Merriman spoke out against this, which allowed the BBC to put the headline ‘BBC licence fee: Tory MPs warn No. 10 against fight’ atop its characteristically impartial coverage. I suppose there are various reactions one can have to this, ranging from outrage at supposed ‘cultural vandalism’, via a vague shrug, all the way through to the full Charles Moore. In recent years I have moved through all these stages.

The discovery that mattered most was the realisation that the less BBC I had in my life, the better. Starting with the discovery that no one seeking to begin the day happily should listen to Radio 4 before midday. Even Radio 3 should be approached with care. As the years went by I realised that I just needed Aunty less and less. Netflix makes better dramas and documentaries. Amazon Prime has a greater range of products. Neither charge me for an easy listening channel I’m uninterested in or a pop radio station that can damn well pay for itself. I get my news elsewhere. I’ve seen wars more amusing than BBC comedy. And now YouTube offers us a lifetime of free, serious, long-form political-cultural discussion while the BBC tries to palm us off with those three-minute, multi-guest ding-dongs.

There was always one available riposte to such complaints: ‘Ah, but the Proms.’ And for a time I found the argument compelling. If a tax had to be levied across the UK in order to produce the BBC Proms — the cost of which accounts for far less than 1 per cent of the corporation’s annual budget — then so be it. Until I recognised that the Proms had become the BBC’s cultural beard: a disguise to allow the corporation to down-speak everywhere else.