Politics

Although Jeremy Paxman spent several decades working for the BBC, the presenter took an opportunity at a Royal Television Society talk today to cast doubt over its future. With the BBC’s charter renewal looming, the former Newsnight presenter said that the TV licence ‘can’t last’: ‘As platforms become interchangeable, as computers and televisions become indistinguishable, a tax on the ownership of a particular piece of technology becomes very, very hard to justify, I would say almost impossible.’ Paxman even went so far as to suggest that the new culture secretary – and BBC enemy number one – John Whittingdale could be ‘terribly good’ for the Beeb. Given that Whittingdale previously described the licence fee as ‘worse

Of all the MPs’ wives, Karen Danczuk and Sally Bercow may have amassed the most column inches. So perhaps it’s not surprising that in the wake of Sally’s latest news, Danczuk has come to her defence. Writing in this week’s issue of the women’s magazine Closer, Danczuk, who says she has been described as ‘the new Sally Bercow’, argues that onlookers should refrain from criticising Bercow over her alleged affair with her husband’s cousin. She says that unless you yourself have been a politician’s wife you cannot understand what it is like: ‘Life as a politician’s wife is a pressure cooker. And you can never switch off – you have a bath

Patrick O’Flynn has apologised for starting last week’s Ukip wars. I understand that O’Flynn met with Farage in Strasbourg this morning — the first time the pair had sat down since his comments in the Times last week. In a slightly bizarre turn of events, the party has released the following statement from O’Flynn: ‘I would like to express to colleagues my sincere regret at going public with my frustrations about the turn of events following polling day. And more than that, I would like to apologise directly to Nigel for the phrase ‘snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive’. This was a fragment of a wider passage about perceptions and is not