Will the Tories attack the ‘bloated’ BBC?

Does Cameron think the Beeb impedes fair competition? Will he cut the DG’s salary? The closer Cameron comes to power, the more the Corporation panics, says Anne McElvoy

What does David Cameron really think of the BBC? A spectre (or several, perhaps) haunts the taupe corridors of White City, Television Centre and Broadcasting house as a likely Tory victory grows closer. Memories abound of Mrs Thatcher’s Peacock Report, which was intended to begin the dismantling of the licence fee, of Norman Tebbit’s 1986 broadside, unleashed by coverage of the Libyan embassy siege, but really a Kulturkampf against a perceived left-liberal bias.

The BBC may not have had an untroubled relationship with New Labour — Alastair Campbell and the Today programme’s coverage of the missing Iraq WMD saw to that. But it has lived in a kind of psychological comfort zone with a Labour government, which approved licence fee rises without undue rigour and shared a sense of a liberal mission with the BBC. A prickle attends the prospect of David Cameron, graduate of the commercial Carlton TV, where he was deemed to have sharp elbows and a sharp tongue in pursuit of his boss Michael Green’s interests.

Over the past year, the Tory leader has established his own modus operandi with the Corporation, which is to hug it one minute and kick it the next. ‘It’s a bit like being in an abusive relationship where you never know if you’re going to get a kick or a bunch of flowers,’ says one senior White City figure. Sometimes it’s both at once. Last week the Tories reinforced their opposition to Labour’s top-slicing proposals to spread licence fee income to other broadcasters. Their media and culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt was initially in favour. Today, he confesses to me a ‘Damascene moment’ which changed his mind.