Battles with BBC all part of cut and thrust of a Tory conference

IT wouldn’t be a Conservative conference without a spat with the BBC and this year hasn’t disappointed. First Nick Robinson, BBC Radio Four presenter, told the Prime Minister to “stop talking” during the PM’s rambling answer to a question on the Today programme. Then Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said she didn’t even know if the Beeb would still be around a decade from now.

Ms Dorries, clearly appointed to her role in part because of her combative approach to our national broadcaster, was gently contradicted by Boris Johnson yesterday when he described the BBC as a “great national institution.” Adding: “I’m sure that it will be around for a very long time to come.” The message, however, won’t have been lost on top BBC management. Every now and again, the Conservatives believe, Auntie Beeb has to be reminded who calls the shots.

The PM is, of course, correct. Most of the people who voted him into power; indeed, most voters generally are enthusiastic consumers of BBC programming. The vast majority are much more interested in the quality of the soaps, like Eastenders, the dramas like Vigil and Line of Duty and the game shows and comedies than they are in any perceived political bias, left or right.

While members of the cabinet see a BBC stuffed full of lefty Oxbridge types who have made it their life’s work to undermine Tory governments, the vast majority of ordinary people value the broadcaster for its range of programming and, for the most part, believe it gets the journalism just about right.

That doesn’t mean, however, the BBC and particularly its current affairs department, can rest easy. The tension that exists between broadcasters, newspapers, news websites and those in power is important. And there is no doubt the healthiest relationships are between independent news and current affairs outlets that don’t rely on that very government for the ability to raise the revenues it needs to keep operating.

The flaw with our state-sponsored broadcaster is not that there is currently any overt political interference in the way it operates, but the risk that there could be and the temptation – which Ms Dorries clearly felt unable to resist this week – to throw in the odd threat just to shake-up the Beeb’s bosses. Yet like a number of long-established British institutions, from the monarchy to the House of Lords, despite the flaws and the feeling that, if you were starting from scratch you wouldn’t do things in quite the same way, it sort of works.

Boris Johnson is a pragmatic politician and while some of his ministers might have designs on privatising the Beeb, splitting up the corporation and scrapping the licence fee, he is likely to want to keep things pretty much as they are. The BBC does respond to public and political pressure, like all organisations, and is changing to better reflect society while keeping, for the most part, its independence. Nick Robinson is as likely to tell Keir Starmer to stop yammering away as he is Boris Johnson. So long as that remains the case, there’s not too much to worry about.